Some Studies on the Use of Elephant Grass For Feeding Dairy Cattle

Several worker had pointed out the existance of a shortage of feeds available for both animals and oultry in Egypt ( Makky et al., (1976). Recently kotb et al. (1974) showed that in 1970 shortage amounted to 3.1 million tons of starch equivelent (SE) and 79,000 tons of digestible protein (DP).Available feeds for animals only exhibited an energy shortage of 2.473 million tons of SE with a surplus in DP of nearly 69.000 tons . The unequal distribution of nutrients available for live-stock around the year did complicate the problem. during winter, the available feesds ( mainly berseem ) cover 96 and 177 % of animal requirements for energy and protein, respectively. However, dring summer the available feeds ( mainly concentrates and straw ) cover only 39 and 37 % of animal requirements for energy and protein, respectively ( Kotb et al., 1974 ). THis investigation was undertaken on friesian dairy cows to Study the effect of replacing concentrates with different percentages of the elephant grass on milk and fat yields and some milk chemical composition.