Efficient Preparation Technology to Improve Digestibility of Forage Rice (Part 3)
——Exfoliation and crushing of the paddy in whole crop rice silage and its feeding to Holstein steers——

Abstract

To reduce grain excretion — a serious problem when feeding dairy and beef cattle whole crop rice silage — a rice silage crusher was developed to exfoliate chaff or to crush the paddy itself. This apparatus was used to exfoliate the chaff or crush the paddy used to prepare whole crop rice silage ; the crush rate was over 90%. In Holstein steers, the nutrient digestibility and nutrient contents of whole crop rice silage prepared with the crushing process were better than that prepared without crushing process ; furthermore, grain excretion was reduced by 66%. The chewing activities did not differ in the case of silage prepared with or without the crushing process.