Food alternatives for cattle

Dear readers, we have talked in different articles about food alternatives for cattle, taking into account that there are times when forage resources decrease their yield of green biomass. It is necessary to highlight that in tropical regions cattle breeding has the largest source of food resources in forage grazing, which depend on management, soil quality and local climatic conditions, to express their best performance and quality. Therefore, an abundant and economical source such as pastures become a nutritional limitation in those times by sometimes presenting high fiber values, low protein percentages and low digestibility which limits the production of meat or milk.

In that sense, Grings et al., (1999), pointed out that when this type of situation occurs with pastures, animals may present changes in behavior and body appearance, because according to them, the limitation in the supply of essential nutrients to animals is reflected in a generalized alteration of body functions, the effects of which at an early age involve a delay in weight gain.

Generally, producers in our geographical area use as a strategy to correct these nutritional deficiencies the use of commercially manufactured concentrated balanced foods or food supplements made on their own farms, the main limitation in the use of commercial foods is their high cost, but also, there are alternatives using food supplements with local raw materials among which can be mentioned banana and palm nepe.

In our publications we always highlight the need to locate local resources available for bovine feeding and supplement some nutritional deficiencies in the animal, on this occasion, palm Nepe and banana can be mentioned, since they are crops that are very adapted to tropical climatic conditions and that particularly in the southern area of Lake Maracaibo Venezuela, there are large areas cultivated with these species.

In this sense, the African oil palm, Elaeis guineensis Jacq, is a perennial vegetable, potentially beneficial for the country, for two fundamental reasons: its high oil yields per hectare and for its multiple products and by-products such as: rachis, almonds, palm kernel cake (nepe de palma), effluent sludge and fatty acids, of agricultural and industrial value. As for animal nutrition, only some research has been carried out on palm kernel cake (nepe de palma), obtained by extracting the oil from almonds, from the processing of the almond or palm kernel, between 50 and 56% of the product obtained is cake, a variation that depends on the cleanliness of the palm kernel, which contains between 17 and 19% of protein, depending on the type of extraction process used, apart from its fiber content.

With regard to the banana, paradisiacal muse, it has the general characteristic of fruits, that is, they have a nutritional value that lies mainly in their carbohydrate content. For this reason this fruit has been used in animal feed as an energy source.The edible part of the banana contains on average 75% water, 21% carbohydrates and 1% fats, proteins, fiber and ashes according to various published bromatological reports.

Therefore, after observing the nutritional benefits contained in these two plant species, it becomes necessary to look for low-cost food alternatives for the producer to increase their productive and reproductive levels in their production unit. With regard to the use of different food products (banana and nepe de palma) García and González (2007), indicate that they can improve the growth in daily weight gain (GDP) in cattle, and reach the physiological maturity of the mautas to reach puberty and be suitable for reproduction in order to determine the profitability of the system.

Dear readers, knowing the relevance of strategic supplementation in the agricultural field is important for the livestock producer who usually shows interest in applying methods that represent profitable alternatives from the economic point of view, with the search for highly available vegetable options in the geographical areas where the farms are located and that these guarantee the good development of the cattle herd.