Abstract
Effects on digestibility, nutrient intake and milk production in dairy cows given fermented total mixed ration (TMR) containing various silages with sweet-potato shochu distillery by-product cake (SDC) were studied. Fermentation quality of the fermented TMR between corn silage-based and rice whole crop silage-based diets (CS-TMR and RWCS-TMR, respectively) was compared. Four dry cows were given two dietary treatments in a crossover design to determine the effects on digestibility, rumen fermentation and nitrogen metabolism (experiment 1), and four lactating cows were treated in the same way to investigate the effect in milk production (experiment 2). The fermented TMR scored more than 80 points on the V-SCORE scale, indicating good quality. When the fermented TMR with SDC was fed to dry cows, the TDN content of the CS-TMR was significantly higher than that of the RWCS-TMR (P<0.05). In addition, the treatments showed no significant effects on the apparent digestibility other than crude fat, rumen fermentation and nitrogen utilization in dry cows. Dry matter intake, TDN intake, milk yield and composition in lactating cows fed the fermented TMR with SDC showed no differences between the treatments. In conclusion, good feed quality can be obtained using fermented TMR mixed with either CS or RWCS and combined with SDC, and SDC is one of the fermented TMR materials for use as dairy cow feed.
