Nice work !
Professor Ali, please write which category of goats you need to examine (lactating or feedlot goats)?????
My opinion is that you should make calculation according to the parameters as requirements for basal metabolism:
1. body weight
2. dry matter (kg)
3. digestable proteins (g)
4. NEL (MEJ) for goats in lactation
I hope I gave to you some nice sugestion and way of thinking
Best, Vesna
You can weigh the feed and then limit the amount fed so that goats consume specified amounts, such as 1%, 1.5%, 2.0%, 2.5% and 3% of their body weight or a specific amount of sesame cake. Or you can provide more than the goats will consume and weigh the amount fed and the amount remaining after they consume the feed freely. There is much more precision if each goat is fed individually, otherwise the group average can be used, but then it is challenging to interpret the data. if goats are grazing, feed the sesame cake individually to goats 2-3 times per day and then let them graze freely between feedings. In other words, control the intake of sesame cake and assume that forage intake is essentially the same among goats. Knowing the amount of sesame cake consumed by each goat is the most important factor in determining its effect on blood lipids.
Another approach would be to do a Latin Square type experiment where each goat receives each dose for a 2 wk period, so that during every 2-week period every dose is being consumed by a different goat. You should decide the dosages in advance. Measure the blood lipids only during the 2nd week of each period -- the first week is a transition or adjustment period from the previous dose. In this case, you are controlling intake of sesame cake, but you may let goats graze freely. Be sure to weigh the goats (and their milk if lactating) to determine if there are any apparent trends in weight change or milk yield as amount of sesame cake increases.
I agree with Dr. Britt. You may achieve higher precision by determination the dry matter (DM) content of the feed or of the different components of diet, resp.. Multiplying the intake of fresh matter with the DM content(s) results in feed dry matter intake.
...and one important thing as additional: to be correct, you have to carry out experiments with different doses, minimum 2 doses of new feeds, in this case sesam meal. Have a success.
You can look for the digestibility value of your fourrage and weight the Dry Matter of the feces (easy to collect)
Dry Matter Intake = quantity of feces x (1 - digestibility)
there is lot of equation from INRA to estimate intake in ruminants you can use them also.
I prefer free choice or ad libitum feeding of the goats individually with sesame cake so that no restriction is imposed on intake because goats are known to consume more than 3% of their body weight. The orts should be should be subtracted from the quantity served and the intake multiplied by the % DM of the sesame intake to know DM intake. It is better the goats are fed continuously for about 8 weeks upward so as to establish the effect of the sesame cake on the blood profile. The goats should, however, be provided with equal but sufficient amount of a basal diet that is known not to contain anti-nutritional factors or toxic principles which may be fed with restriction. It is important to take note of the quality of the basal diet so that the it does not mask the effect of the sesame intake on the blood profile.
Give a known weight of feed based on animal body weight. After feeding time, remove the leftover and subtract from the feed given.
This only to calculate feed intake. If you want to measure the digestibility, the procedure is different.
I agree with Dr. Jannathulla R. However, the form in which the feed is presented to the animal may have great influence on the intake.
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