Animal Science Journal (2008) 79, 7682

doi: 10.1111/j.1740-0929.2007.00500.x

ORIGINAL ARTICLE Comparison of fattening performance in Brahman grade cattle (Bos indicus) and crossbred water buffalo (Bubalus bubalis) fed on high roughage diet
Rosalina M. LAPITAN,1 Arnel N. DEL BARRIO,1 Osamu KATSUBE,2 Tomomi BAN-TOKUDA,2 Edgar A. ORDEN,3 Alberto Y. ROBLES,4 Libertado C. CRUZ,5 Yukio KANAI6 and Tsutomu FUJIHARA2
Philippine Carabao Center at UPLB, College, Laguna, 3Central Luzon State University, Science City of Munoz, Nueva Ecija, 4Dairy Training and Research Institute, UPLB, College, Laguna, 5Philippine Carabao Center, Science City of Munoz, Philippines; and 2Shimane University, Matsue and 6Tsukuba University, Tsukuba, Japan
1

ABSTRACT
The objective of this study was to compare the fattening performance in Brahman grade cattle (crossbred cattle) and crossbred water buffalo at the same young age and fed with high roughage based fattening rations in the Philippines. Ten crossbred cattle and 10 crossbred water buffalo, aged between 18 and 24 months old were used in this experiment. The animals were fed diets consisting of 85% Napier or Para grass and 15% concentrate mixture (CM) on a dry matter (DM) basis. The grass, total DM intake and bodyweight gain were signicantly (P < 0.01) higher for the crossbred water buffalo than for the cattle. There was no species signicant difference in the digestion coefcient and feed conversion rate between the crossbred cattle and water buffalo. The return over feed cost for fattening was signicantly (P < 0.05) higher in the crossbred water buffalo than in the cattle. These results clearly indicate that under high roughage-based fattening rations, young crossbred water buffalo are better able to utilize the roughage and they perform better in terms of feed intake and live weight gains than the crossbred cattle in the Philippines.

Key words: crossbred cattle, crossbred water buffalo, fattening performance, feed intake, high roughage ration.

INTRODUCTION
The carabao in the Philippines, a swamp type of water buffalo (Bubalus bubalis L.), has long been widely recognized by the Filipino as their national animal, of which 99% of an estimated population of 3.1 million are raised by the smallholder farmers who comprise the majority of the population (BAS 2003). In 1981 the Philippine Carabao Research and Development Center (now the Philippine Carabao Center, an agency attached to the Department of Agriculture) initiated a large-scale crossbreeding program which aimed to produce crossbred water buffalo that possess better genetic potential for milk and meat production. The crossbreeding program successfully produced crossbred water buffaloes by mating male river buffalo such as the Murrah and Nili-Ravi breeds from India,

Pakistan and Bulgaria with Philippine native female swamp water buffalo through articial insemination. Salazar (1995) compared the average bodyweight (BW) between the native buffalo and crossbred water buffalo and reported that the mean BW of the native buffalo was lower than that of the crossbreed (Native buffalo Murrah or Native buffaloes Nili-Ravi). Furthermore, Parker (1992) also reported that the crossbred water buffalo (Native buffalo Murrah) was relatively heavier and larger compared with native buffalo progenies between and within different
Correspondence: Tsutomu Fujihara, Laboratory of Animal Science, Shimane University, Matsue, Shimane 690-8504, Japan. (Email: fujihara@life.shimane-u.ac.jp) Received 13 December 2006; accepted for publication 19 March 2007.

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locations. These reports clearly show that the crossbred water buffalo has a higher growth rate and reaches slaughter weight faster than the native buffalo in the Philippines. Until recently, several reports conrm that buffalo meat, which is compared to beef, has similar sensory characteristics, proximate composition and processing characteristics, a lower separable lean meat and less cholesterol. But the buffalo has a signicantly lower dressing percentage (Calub et al. 1971; Carmona 1971; Argaosa et al. 1973, 1975; Lemcke 2004). However, there is little information available on performance in terms of meat production, carcass and meat quality of growing crossbred water buffalo in the Philippines. Our recent studies (Lapitan et al. 2004a, 2007) on the meat production, carcass and meat quality between Brahman grade cattle (crossbred cattle) and crossbred water buffalo at the same young age (1824 months) and fed with high grain-based fattening diets (corn silage, brewers grain and concentrate mixture) in the Philippines found that the performance of crossbred cattle and crossbred water buffalo was comparable in terms of growth, carcass and meat quality. However, drawbacks include the high cost of grain feed for smallholder farmers and the difculty of making silage, especially in terms of the efciency of using land for corn production, together with an unreliable rainfall and the large amount of capital investment needed (Ichinohe et al. 2004). Hence, there is need for another fattening feed source that can be easily used by smallholder farmers. The aim of this study was to compare the fattening performance between Brahman grade cattle and crossbred water buffaloes at same age (1824 months) and fed with high roughage rations based on Napier grass or Para grass and a small amount of concentrate mixture that is locally available. Part of this work has been briey described by Lapitan et al. (2004b).

MATERIALS AND METHODS Study location

The study was carried out between August and May 2003/04 at the research farm of Philippine Carabao Center, University of Philippines at Los Baos, Laguna (latitude 14 N and longitude 121 E).

(Bubalus bubalis, Philippine native swamp water buffaloes Murrah), aged 1824 months (each species comprised of ve intact males and ve females) were used to compare the feed utilization and fattening performance. The crossbred water buffalo is commonly superior to native buffalo (carabao), e.g. the birth weight, mature BW (at 36 months) and milk production are 35.0 kg, 460 kg and 12001500 kg/ year in crossbred buffalo and 26.0 kg, 305 kg and 300800 kg/year in the carabao, respectively. All the animals were purchased from the farmers at the auction market and were dewormed 2 weeks before the start of the experiment. The feeding trial lasted for 180 days. All the animals were accustomed to their new diet and environment for 30 days before the commencement of the feeding trial. They were housed in individual metal-roofed concrete-oored pens (3 5 m), equipped with feeders and fresh water was available ad libitum. The feeding regimen consisted of 85% Napier grass (Pennisetum purpureum) or Para grass (Brachiaria mutica) and 15% concentrate mixture (consisting of 35% copra cake, 25% wheat pollard, 25% rice bran, 5% yellow corn, 5% molasses, 2.05% limestone, 1.3% calcium, 0.15% minerals, 1% salt and 0.5% urea) on a dry matter (DM) basis. The feed requirement was estimated to attain 0.5 kg/day based on the recommendation of Kearl (1982). Each diet was fed separately at 08.00 and 15.00 hours in equal amounts according to requirement. During the experimental period, Napier grass was fed for 130 days as a main basal diet, then Para grass replaced Napier grass until the completion of the feeding trial (50 days). The Napier grass (about 45 days regrowth) and Para grass used were harvested daily from an area of approximately 1 to 2 ha which was initially fertilized with manure from the research farm of the Philippine Carabao Center. After harvesting, the Napier grass was wilted by air drying for 1 day, then chopped to lengths of 1015 cm before being fed to the animals, while the Para grass was directly fed to the animals without chopping. The chemical compositions of the diets are presented in Table 1.

Data collection
During the experimental period, the feed intake was recorded daily. Feed offered and orts were collected weekly, pooled monthly, then analyzed for DM. All the samples were dried in an oven set at 60C for 48 h to a constant weight and then ground to pass through a 1 mm screen for chemical analysis. The proximate

Animals and diets

Ten crossbred cattle (Bos indicus, Philippine native cattle Brahman) and 10 crossbred water buffalo

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Table 1 Chemical composition of experimental diets fed to crossbred cattle and crossbred water buffalo

Napier grass Proximate components Dry matter, as fed Organic matter Crude protein Ether extract Cell wall components Neutral detergent ber Acid detergent ber 21.5 84.0 8.0 1.1 68.4 46.1

Para grass 29.3 88.1 9.3 1.8 65.3 44.1

Concentrate mixture 90.0 90.9 15.7 7.5 40.1 59.0

mean of 10 animals and standard error of mean was as same as in the previous works (Lapitan et al. 2004a,b, 2007).

Feed intake
The average daily DM intake (DMI) of the crossbred cattle and the crossbred water buffalo during the feeding trial is presented in Table 2. The results showed that the crossbred water buffalo had a signicantly (P < 0.01) higher grass intake compared to the crossbred cattle, even when the grass intake was expressed as percentage of BW and metabolic body size. On the other hand, no species difference was noted in the concentrate mixture (CM) intake, but when expressed as a percentage of BW, the crossbred cattle exhibited a signicantly (P < 0.05) higher CM intake than the crossbred water buffalo. Compared to the crossbred cattle, the signicantly (P < 0.01) higher grass intake of the crossbred water buffalo resulted in a higher (P < 0.01) total DMI, total crude protein (CP) intake and total digestible nutrient (TDN) intake. In the literature, Kennedy (1990), after a series of comparative studies between buffalo and cattle, concluded that buffalo exhibit a higher voluntary intake than cattle on low-quality forage such as spear grass and rice straw. However, Kennedy (1990) also found no difference for other low-quality forage (e.g. Verano and lablab), while cattle consumed more Rhodes grass than the buffalo did. Likewise, Moran (1983) in their experiment found that the buffalo had higher intake than cattle when fed elephant grass. In contrast, some workers found a similar DMI between cattle and buffalo (Abdullah et al. 1992; Lapitan et al. 2004a) while Grant et al. (1974) reported earlier that buffaloes had a signicantly lower DMI than cattle. These reports clearly show that the voluntary intake between cattle and buffalo is not consistent. These differences in the DMI of crossbred cattle and crossbred water buffalo could due to a variation of feed quality and the kinds of diets that are used in those experiments. The high DMI of crossbred water buffalo in the present study while using high roughage (Napier grass and Para grass)-based fattening diets suggests that crossbred water buffalo are better adapted to such conditions compared to crossbred (Brahman grade) cattle in the Philippines.

Mean of pooled samples throughout the experiment. Percentage of dry matter, except dry matter.

composition of the samples was determined according to the AOAC (1990) method. Neutral detergent ber (NDF) and acid detergent ber (ADF) were determined using the procedure of Goering and Van Soest (1970). Monthly BW changes were calculated from an average of two consecutive days of weighing prior to morning feeding. The digestion trial was done from the 84th to the 90th day of the feeding trial. Eight crossbred cattle and eight crossbred water buffalo (comprised of four intact males and four females for each species) were used in this trial. The feces were collected manually for 24 h and for 7 consecutive days from each animal. The feces were collected immediately at the time of defecation to avoid urine contamination. The total amount of feces was weighed and recorded for each animal. About 10% of well-mixed feces was collected from the total feces as a representative sample. Feed offered and refused was also collected daily for DM determination and other chemical analysis. All samples were analyzed for proximate components and NDF, ADF by the same methods as described above.

Statistical analysis
All data gathered were subjected to analysis of variance (ANOVA) using the general linear model (GLM) of Statistica for Windows Release 4.3 (StatSoft, Tulsa, OK, 1993).

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

In the present experiment, there was no signicant gender effect in the results obtained with both species (the crossbred cattle and the crossbred water buffalo), hence the mean values shown in the tables are the

Average daily gain and feed efciency

The BW changes and feed conversion of crossbred cattle and crossbred water buffalo during the experimental

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Table 2

Average daily dry matter (DM), crude protein (CP) and energy intake of crossbred cattle and crossbred water buffalo

Crossbred cattle DM intake Napier/Para grass (kg/day) (% of BW/day) (g/BW0.75/day) (kg/day) (% of BW) (g/BW0.75/day) (kg/day) (% of BW/day) (g/BW0.75/day) (g/day) (g/BW0.75/day) (g/day) (g/BW0.75/day) (g/day) (g/BW0.75/day) (kg/day) (g/BW0.75/day) (kcal/day) 4.48 1.72 69.1 0.78 0.30* 12.1 5.26 2.03 81.2 379.5 5.85 122.5 1.90 502.0 7.75 2.67 41.3 9.68

Crossbred buffalo 6.52** 1.92** 82.7** 0.81 0.24 10.3 7.33** 2.17* 93.0** 553.4** 7.02** 127.3 1.62 680.7** 8.64** 3.92** 49.9** 14.2

SEM 0.28 0.03 1.99 0.03 0.01 0.48 0.28 1.73 0.03 24.2 0.17 4.71 0.08 24.2 0.14 0.17 1.31 0.61

Concentrate mixture

Total

CP intake Napier/Para grass Concentrate mixture Total Energy intake TDN intake ME intake

*P < 0.05; **P < 0.01. signicantly different among these species. SEM, standard error of the mean (n = 20). The values during Para grass feeding was calculated using digestion coefcient of Para grass obtained in other experiments. ME, metabolizable energy calculated based on TDN (NARO 2001). BW, bodyweight; TDN, total digestible nutrient.

Table 3 period

Bodyweight changes and feed conversion of crossbred cattle and crossbred water buffalo during the experimental

Crossbred cattle Initial bodyweight (kg) Final bodyweight (kg) Total gain (kg) Average daily weight gain (g/day) Feed conversion rate 231.1 296.3 65.3 362.5 14.5

Crossbred buffalo 300.2* 389.3* 89.1* 493.9* 14.8

SEM 10.4 12.8 4.12 22.9 0.79

*P < 0.01; signicantly different among species. BW, bodyweight, SEM, Standard error of the mean (n = 20).

period are presented in Table 3. The total live weight gains and average daily gains (ADG) were signicantly (P < 0.01) higher in the crossbred water buffalo than the crossbred cattle, but the feed conversion was statistically similar among the animals. The signicantly higher live weight gain of crossbred water buffalo compared to crossbred cattle in the present study can be explained by its signicantly (P < 0.01) higher grass intake, resulting in higher CP and energy intakes. This is in agreement with the study of Robles et al. (1971) on the feeding of poor quality roughage, which revealed that the buffalo outperforms cattle when the forage is of poor quality, such as rice straw and other matured grass. However, when the animals are raised on a high-quality based ration such as corn silage, brewers

spent grain and CM, similar weight gains are observed between crossbred cattle and crossbred water buffalo in the Philippines (Lapitan et al. 2004a). The results showed that the crossbred water buffalo have an advantage in terms of weight gain compared to crossbred cattle when fed high roughage rations during their growing period (1824 months).

Apparent digestibility
Apparent digestion coefcients and daily feed intake of crossbred cattle and crossbred water buffalo are presented in Table 4. The results showed that the crossbred water buffalo had a signicantly (P < 0.01) higher grass intake (kg/day, g/W0.75 and percentage of BW/day) than crossbred cattle. On the other hand, the

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Table 4

Feed intake and apparent digestibility of nutrients in crossbred cattle and crossbred water buffalo

Crossbred cattle DM intake Napier grass (kg) (% of BW) (g/BW0.75) (kg) (% of BW) (g/BW0.75) (kg) (% of BW) (g/BW0.75) (g/day) (g/BW0.75) (kg/day) (g/BW0.75) (kg/day) (g/BW0.75) 4.45 1.70 68.2 0.77 0.30* 11.9 5.22 1.98 80.1 476.3 7.32 3.35 67.7 2.67 40.7 54.7 57.1 64.5 64.8 51.4 43.8 50.8

Crossbred buffalo 6.73** 1.92* 83.2** 0.76 0.22 9.54 7.50** 2.13 92.8** 658.5** 8.16** 4.91** 75.5** 3.88** 48.0** 56.6 59.4 68.1 66.2 54.4 46.3 51.8

SEM 0.32 0.09 2.01 0.08 0.03 0.54 0.45 1.98 0.08 28.9 0.20 0.25 5.06 0.19 1.40 0.67 0.67 0.63 1.21 0.83 0.87 0.59

Concentrate mixture

Total

CP intake NDF intake TDN intake Apparent digestibility (%) DM Organic matter CP Ether extract NDF Acid detergent ber TDN (%)

*P < 0.05, **P < 0.01, signicantly different. SEM, standard error of the mean (n = 16). DM intake during the digestion trial. BW, bodyweight, CP, crude protein; DM, dry matter; NDF, neutral detergent ber; TDN, total digestible nutrient.

crossbred cattle had a signicantly (P < 0.05) higher CM intake than the crossbred water buffalo when expressed as a percentage of BW. This resulted in a signicantly (P < 0.01) higher total daily DMI for the crossbred buffalo when expressed as kg/day and g/BW0.75/day), but not as a percentage of BW. CP, NDF and TDN intake were signicantly (P < 0.01) different between the animal species. The buffalo has been reported to utilize feed nutrients better than cattle when fed on poor quality rations containing high levels of cellulose (Escao et al. 1971; Robles et al. 1971; Grant et al. 1974; Katiyar & Bisth 1988a,b) and buffalo rumen microbes have a greater brolytic activity than those of cattle when fed a highly brous diet (Homma 1986; Kennedy et al. 1992a; Wanapat et al. 2000). The in vivo digestibility of crossbred cattle and crossbred water buffalo in the present study were comparable for both species. On the other hand, in contrast to the above works and the present study, Kennedy et al. (1992a,b) found lower digestibility for buffalo than for cattle fed rice straw and tropical forages (Spear grass, rye grass, rice straw, Calopo and Verano). Moreover, Puppo et al. (2002) indicated that cattle had signicantly higher digestibility for OM, NDF

and cellulose than buffalo when fed alfalfa hay or maize silage with concentrate. These contrasting results among different studies could be mainly caused by the different characteristic of the diets, the quality of forages used in the experiment and the feed intake level between the various species. Ichinohe et al. (2004) suggested that dietary interaction and unidentied regulation mechanisms between cattle and buffalo with rumen digestion may be related to these conicting results, while Kennedy et al. (1992b) suggested that methodological differences may have contributed to that conclusion. The signicantly (P < 0.01) higher grass intake observed in the crossbred water buffalo in this study may be related to the increased rate of passage compared with crossbred cattle owing to the greater brolytic activity of adherent rumen microbes in the former than in the latter (Homma 1986; Kennedy et al. 1992a; Wanapat et al. 2000). Therefore, the higher digestibility trends of crossbred water buffalo in the present study can be attributed to differences of rumen microbes, which, in crossbred water buffalo, have more brolytic activity and they are therefore able to digest more brous feeds and can also make better use of the ber bound protein as compared to crossbred cattle.

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Table 5

Partial cost and return analysis (PhP) of crossbred cattle and crossbred water buffalo

Crossbred cattle Average daily gain (g/day/head) Income from live weight gain (PhP) Cost of feeds Napier/Para grass Concentrate mixture Total Return over feed cost 362.5 19.9 6.54 7.04 13.6 6.36

Crossbred buffalo 493.9** 27.2** 9.65* 7.28 16.9* 10.2*

SEM 22.9 1.26 0.43 0.27 0.49 1.03

*P < 0.05, **P < 0.01 Signicantly different. SEM, standard error of mean (n = 20). Napier grass 1.5 PhP/kg DM, Para grass 1.1 PhP/kg DM, Concentrate mixture 9.0 PhP/kg DM. DM, dry matter; PhP, Philippine peso: 1.0 US$ = 54 pesos. PhP/day/head. Assumption: income from live weight gain of animals = 55.0 PhP/kg (Lapitan et al. 2004a).

However, as shown in Table 4, the advantage of crossbred water buffalo in ber (NDF) digestion was not so clearly (P < 0.08) detected in the present study.

Return above feed cost

The Table 5 shows partial cost and return analysis of crossbred water buffalo and crossbred cattle during the period of fattening. As described above, the ADG was signicantly (P < 0.01) higher in the crossbred water buffalo than in crossbred cattle, and the income from live weight gain was also higher in the former than in the latter. The roughage intake in the crossbred water buffalos cost more than that in the crossbred cattle, although there was no difference in the intake of concentrate between the animal species. Thus, the total cost of feed was signicantly (P < 0.05) higher in the crossbred water buffalo than in the crossbred cattle. However, the return over feed cost for fattening was signicantly (P < 0.05) greater in the crossbred water buffalo than in the crossbred cattle. This is due to the high ADG in the crossbred water buffalo compared to that in the crossbred cattle when they were fattened with the high roughage diet.

cluded that at a young age and under high roughagebased fattening rations, crossbred water buffalo are not only better able to utilize the roughage and perform better in terms of feed intake and live weight gains than the crossbred cattle but also provide a high return over feed cost in the Philippines. There is also a need for a more detailed study in relation to meat production as well as to quantify the production potential of the crossbred water buffalo, especially in terms of milk production and under various production systems, in order to cater for the needs of various smallholder farmers in the Philippines.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This research was in part nancially supported by Grant-in-Aid for Scientic Research (B) from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS), project no. 15380184.

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Conclusion and implications

In previous study reported by Lapitan et al. (2004a, 2007) the crossbred water buffalo had a comparable production performance in terms of meat production, carcass and meat quality to the crossbred cattle under high grain-based fattening rations. However, in this study, the crossbred water buffalo showed a comparable or superior production performance (feed intake, ADG and return over feed cost) to that of the crossbred cattle at the same young age (1824 months) and when fed with high roughage-based fattening rations such as Napier grass or Para grass supplemented with limited amount of concentrate. It is therefore, con-

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