A Murrah Buffalo on a Straw-Heavy Ration and a Plan to Double Cottonseed Cake
Mr. Patil of Ahmednagar milks a Murrah buffalo in her third lactation, 60 days calved, weighing about 450 kg, yielding 10 L a day at 7.2% fat, with a body condition score of 3.0. Her daily ration is 25 kg chopped hybrid napier, 6 kg wheat straw, 2.5 kg undecorticated cottonseed cake and 1 kg wheat bran, with no mineral mixture and no salt. Water is offered only twice a day from a concrete tank. The animal is let out into a dry yard for two hours after each milking. He has read that cottonseed cake is a "milk-boosting" feed and plans to raise it to 5 kg a day to push yield to 14 L. He was inseminated 21 days ago and does not know whether she has conceived. He wants to know whether the extra cake will give him the extra 4 litres.
1. Using standard field thumb rules, assess her present ration and identify what is limiting her yield.
Read the worked answer
Dry matter capacity. A buffalo eats about 2.5–3% of body weight as dry matter: for 450 kg that is roughly 11–13.5 kg DM. Present intake works out at approximately: napier 25 kg × 20% DM = 5 kg; wheat straw 6 kg × 90% = 5.4 kg; cottonseed cake 2.5 kg × 90% = 2.25 kg; wheat bran 1 kg × 90% = 0.9 kg. Total ≈ 13.5 kg DM, that is, at the ceiling. There is no room for 2.5 kg more cake without cutting the straw.
What the ration is actually supplying.
- Energy: roughly 6.5–7 kg TDN equivalent, against a need of about 8.5–9 kg for 10 L at 7% fat. Straw is the culprit: it supplies bulk but very little energy and slows digestion.
- Protein: about 1.2–1.3 kg crude protein against a need of roughly 1.6 kg - marginal, not generous, even with a high-protein cake.
- Fibre: undecorticated cottonseed cake is high in crude fibre (around 30–35%) on top of 6 kg straw, so rumen fill, not nutrient supply, is the limit.
- Minerals: no mineral mixture, no salt - a clear deficiency affecting yield, fertility and skeletal health.
- Water: 10 L of milk needs 60–80 L of water a day; twice-daily access from a tank restricts intake and therefore intake of dry matter.
Conclusion: she is not short of protein feed; she is short of energy, minerals and water, and her rumen is overfilled with straw.
2. Reformulate her ration for 10 L a day using locally available feeds, and give the feeding schedule.
Read the worked answer
Roughage
- Reduce wheat straw from 6 kg to 4 kg and chaff it to 2–3 cm to cut wastage and sorting.
- Raise green fodder to about 30 kg, mixing napier with 5 kg of lucerne or berseem where available; introduce any new green gradually over a week.
Concentrate - about 4 kg of a balanced mixture
- Maize 35%, decorticated groundnut or cottonseed cake 25%, wheat bran 20%, rice polish 12%, molasses 5%, mineral mixture 2%, common salt 1%.
- This shifts the mixture from a high-fibre, medium-protein feed to an energy-dense one, which is what the TDN gap requires.
Supplements and water
- 50–80 g mineral mixture and 30–40 g salt daily, mixed into the concentrate.
- Free access to clean water at least four times a day; a lactating buffalo should never have to wait for the tank to be filled.
Schedule
- Divide the 4 kg concentrate into three equal feeds; give half of each feed before milking so the oxytocin release works in the farmer's favour, and green fodder immediately after milking to keep fodder smell out of the milk.
- Feed roughage first thing in the morning and last at night; keep the interval between feeds regular.
Check before spending more - confirm pregnancy status at 45–60 days; if she is pregnant, plan for a declining lactation and for the dry period rather than pushing for 14 L.
3. Explain why simply raising undecorticated cottonseed cake to 5 kg a day is a poor decision.
Read the worked answer
Gossypol toxicity. Undecorticated cottonseed cake contains free gossypol. At high intakes it depresses appetite, damages the liver and heart, and reduces fertility; a practical ceiling is about 1–1.5 kg a day of undecorticated cake, or use a decorticated or solvent-extracted meal. Pushing to 5 kg is well beyond safe limits.
It displaces energy feeds. Five kilograms of cake would supply roughly 1 kg of crude protein on top of an already marginal supply, but only a modest amount of energy, and it would take dry matter capacity away from maize, rice polish or good green fodder. Excess protein is deaminated and burned at a cost, producing more urea in blood and milk, not more milk.
It worsens the fibre load. High crude fibre on top of a straw-based ration slows passage and reduces total intake - the opposite of what a 10 L buffalo needs.
It is uneconomical. Cost per kilogram of energy from cottonseed cake is usually far higher than from maize or rice polish; the farmer would pay more for a smaller response.
Mycotoxin risk. Cottonseed and its cake are prone to aflatoxin, which is carried into milk as aflatoxin M1 - a food-safety issue for the cooperative's buyers, not only a production issue.
The correct response to a disappointing yield is to check energy, minerals, water and pregnancy status first, not to add more of the feed that is already being over-fed.