Effect of Dietary Roughage and Concentrate Ratio on Nutrient Utilization and Performance of Ruminant Animals

The objective of this review paper is to highlights the role of dietary roughage and concentrate ratio on feed intake, nutrient utilisation and growth performance of ruminant animals. Daily dry matter intake increases with increase in the dietary concentrate level. The digestibility of dry matter, crude protein, ether extract and nitrogen-free extract increased whereas the fibre digestibility decreases with increase in proportion of concentrate in the diet of the ruminants. Rumen VFA, total nitrogen, ammonia nitrogen production increase and rumen pH decrease with the increase in proportion of concentrate in the diet. The number of total viable rumen bacteria, amylolytic bacteria, proteolytic bacteria, rumen ciliate protozoa and rumen fungi are increased with increased levels of concentrate feeding. Milk production, body weight gain and feed conversion efficiency are better in high than low concentrate fed animals. Higher concentrate diets reduced production cost compared to higher forage diet.