Short Communication: Visual assessment, proximate composition and cost analysis of three differently processed discarded vegetable-bovine blood-rumen content mixtures

With increased search for least-cost alternative feed resource in animal production, this study was conducted to determine the visual properties, chemical composition and cost analysis of three differently processed discarded vegetable-bovine blood-rumen content mixture as potential alternative feed resource. These mixtures were obtained by mixing whole bovine blood, discarded vegetable and rumen content at ratio 1:1:1 under different processing methods. The processed mixtures obtained were in three categories: discarded vegetable-fresh bovine blood-fresh rumen digesta (D1), discarded vegetable-ensiled bovine blood-fresh rumen digesta (D2) and discarded vegetable-fresh bovine blood-ensiled rumen digesta (D3). The mixtures were cooked and sun-dried to constant moisture content and thereafter were subjected to particle size reduction. Chemical composition of the products indicated a good potential nutritional quality with metabolizable energy and crude protein contents ranging from 9.66 to 10.49 MJ/kg and 40.79 to 50.21, respectively. Crude fibre concentrations were relatively low (8.39-13.14) for most of the products compared to conventional protein sources. Visual assessment of processed mixtures revealed D1 to be brownish in colour while D2 and D3 tend towards grey. In terms of odour, all three test mixtures were strongly pungent. Processed mixture D1 had an intermediate texture (it was neither finely ground nor coarse) where D2 and D3 had a finely ground texture. Cost analysis revealed a lower production cost for the three processed mixtures indicating its adequacy to replace soybean and other plant and animal protein sources in terms of their cost/kg inclusion in diet. Processed mixtures can serve as suitable replacements for soybean meal in terms of chemical constituents and reduced cost/kg feed for animal.Keywords: Bovine blood, rumen digesta, discarded vegetable, visual assessment, proximate composition, cost analysis