Succulent feed : Feeding Stuff

Succulent feeds usually contain moisture from 60%-90%. For the sake of convenience, succulent feeds are again classified into various types such as pasture, cultivated fodder crops, tree leaves, silage and root crops.

a) Pasture: Pasture is the most convenient and economic for maintaining larges livestock. Young rapidly growing grasses are rich in protein and highly palatable.

b) Cultivated fodder crops: In the absence of sufficient grazing ground of good quality for maintaining cattle, sheep, goat on pasture all the year round, the importance of growing fodder crops to provide feed economically for production of milk, for drought animals,  for the sake of convenience, these are classified into two groups i) Leguminous and ii) Non-leguminous.

Among leguminous fodders are cowpea, cluster-bean are most common. Another leguminous are berseem, lucerne, green pea etc. Lucerne and berseem are liable to produce "bloat" if given in large quantities and thus it is advisable that they should always be given along with some dry fodder. The phosphorus content of these two forages are poor and have wide  calcium. It is advisable to supplement a ration containing a large amount of leguminous fodder with a limited quantity of wheat or rice bran.

Among non-leguminous fodders are jowar, maize and sudan grass most common oats, barley, napier grass, guinea grass, para grass and bajra are also non-leguminous fodders. Among these, oat is by far excellent for milch cattle.

c) Tree leaves: The utilization of tree leaves for feeding to livestock is not common. They are however, used for feeding sheeps and goats and are  sometimes fed to cattle during period of fodders crisis. In the early stages of their growth, leaves contain fairly highly amounts of crude protein (C.P.) and low percentages of crude fibre (C.F.). As maturity progresses, there is a gradual decrease in protein content with a concomitant increase in crude fibre. The tree leaves and shrubs generally rich in calcium but poor in phosphorus. Among tree leaves are jharberi, katchnar, pipal, bel etc.

d) Root crops: The main characteristic of root crops are high moisture contest (75%-92%) and relativity low crude fibre (5%-11%). Among root crops are turnips, Swedes, mangolds, fodder beat, carrots, tapioca etc.

e) Silage: When the green grasses are conserved without air in special process then this is called silage. Generally maize, jower are used for silage but silage may be prepared by sudan, guinea and napier (hybrid) grasses. Which grasses contain more carbohydrate (CHO) usually those are suitable for silage because CHO easily fermented.