Effects of Feeding Whole-Crop Barley Silage and Corn Silage on Nutrients Availability, Growth Performance and Blood Parameters in Korean Black Goats

*ABSTRACTThis study examined the effects of feeding whole-crop barley silage(BS), corn silage(CS) and the mixture of BS and CS(CB) on feed consumption, daily gain, nutrients apparent digestibilities and blood parameters in order to investigate the feed evaluation in Korean black goats. BS, CS, and CB were fed to twelve Korean black goats, which were allocated into three groups in metabolic cages according to the latin-square design. As a result, dry and organic matter intakes for goats per day have shown a tendency to decrease in the order of CS, CB and BS, but there were no significant differences. We also found a similar tendency when the intakes of crude protein, crude fat, and non-fiber carbohydrates(NFC) were examined. However, ADF and NDF consumptions showed a decreasing tendency in the order of CB, BS and CS. Dry matter intakes per metabolic body weight showed the decreasing tendency in the order of CS (57.6g), CB(53.8g) and BS(52.7g), however with no statistical differences. Average daily gain of 64.2g in CB was significantly higher than the other groups(42.0g to 46.0g). Nitrogen intakes and nitrogen retention showed a decreasing tendency in the order of CS, CB and BC. Nevertheless, nitrogen retention in CS group was higher by 30% than that of the BC group with p