Ammoniated rice straw as feed for ruminants

Rice straw is the most abundant agricultural byproduct in rice producing countries, including Indonesia. Although it is produced in large quantities, however, its utilization is low. Only about 20% of rice straw produced is used for industrial and domestic purposes, including as animal feed. Most of remaining rice straws are left in paddy field, serving as mulch, ploughed into the soil or burned. As animal feed, the main constraint for its high utilization is low palatability, low voluntary intake, low digestibility and low nutritive value. Physical, chemical and biological pre-treatments have been studied to upgrade nutritional value of rice straw. In this article, improving nutritional value of rice straw by chemical method using ammonia gas or urea was chosen for review.

Author(s): Muhammad Rusdy

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