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form of alfalfa sprouts according to the international sprout growers there are approximately 250 million dollars worth of sprouts sold in north america alfalfa juice is used in some health food products alfalfa hay is used primarily as animal feed for dairy cows but also for horses beef cattle sheep chickens turkeys and other farm animals the value of milk meat wool and all other animal products is 132 billion thus the total value of animal products plus the value of hay reach the 145 billion level this far exceeds the combined value of all other high value crops in addition to the traditional uses of alfalfa as an animal feed alfalfa is beginning to be used as a bio fuel for the production of electricity bioremediation of soils with high levels of nitrogen and as a factory for the production of industrial enzymes such as lignin peroxidase alpha amylase cellulase and phytase an excellent resource of information on alfalfa is the monograph entitled alfalfa and alfalfa improvement edited by a a hanson d k barnes and r r hill jr and published by the american society of agronomy monograph number 29 published in 1988 isbn 0 89118 094 x the statistics which are used were obtained from the 1998 usda agriculture statistics at the website http www usda gov nass pubs agr98 acro98 htm taken from http www naaic org alfalfa importance html posted by kazima at 2 19 pm 0 comments the importance of timothy hay for a variety of small pets the best diet you can offer them is one rich in timothy hay dried from a natural perennial grass timothy hay is inexpensive and healthy it aids digestion and helps wear down the constantly growing teeth of rabbits and true herbivores such as chinchillas and guinea pigs rabbits chinchillas and guinea pigs should be offered free access to large quantities of fresh timothy hay daily young animals may have some alfalfa hay similarly other small pets such as hamsters and gerbils should be given a small handful of hay two or three times a week dietary benefits of timothy hay timothy hay should be an integral part of many small pets diets timothy hay is very fibrous therefore it is essential for the proper functioning of your small pet s digestive system as the chewed hay moves through the small and large intestine the high fiber content aids in the passage of food dental benefits of timothy hay timothy hay should be the main food offered to your rabbit chinchilla or guinea pig as your pet chews this herbivore favorite food it wears down and cleans their constantly growing cheek teeth which are the large grinding teeth in the back of the mouth to compensate for this wearing cheek teeth have evolved to grow continuously throughout the animal s life therefore keeping fresh timothy hay available to your rabbit or true herbivore small pet is essential to help wear down her teeth other chewing items such as chew sticks should also be provided the diet of mainly timothy hay should be supplemented with fresh vegetables a small amount of pellets and of course fresh water as with most foods no two hay types are identical in structure and nutrient content this is especially true for timothy hay and alfalfa hay although both types of hay are frequently sold for small pets each has its place in your pet s dietary needs and should not be substituted for one or another alfalfa hay is rich in calories and calcium while timothy hay is less fattening and has much less calcium therefore during the developmental stages of your rabbit s life or during her pregnancy for example alfalfa hay can be offered but once a young animal reaches young adulthood about 7 months of age in a rabbit she should be switched to an almost strictly timothy hay diet unless otherwise recommended by your veterinarian due to low body weight because of its versatility as both a dietary food and dental aid timothy hay is a great food source for many small pets taken from http www drsfostersmith com pic article cfm aid 1302 posted by kazima at 2 17 pm 0 comments friday april 1 2011 my biggest lost today after the jumaat prayer i went to see my bunnies to my shocking my biggest and prime alpha buck james the chinchilla died without a cause this morning it seems okay hopping around in the cage it dies leaving 5 little bunnies from it seeds when it dies it weight 12kg what a lost posted by kazima at 3 04 pm 0 comments thursday march 31 2011 my order arrived at last my order of hay alfalfa and timothy managed to arrived safely it took 3 days to reached me and also i have 3 doe delivering litters today 4 5 4 13 active little bunnies 4 from mix lop ear 5 from lionhead and 4 from local chincilla but the heavy raining these few days make me worries can the litters survives the coldness and the dampness only time will tell posted by kazima at 11 08 pm 0 comments friday february 4 2011 the study of mulberry benefits rabbit weight gainer summary mulberry morus spp the traditional feed for the silk worm has been selected and improved for leaf yield and quality in many environments and is spread throughout the world mulberry leaves are highly palatable and digestible 70 90 to herbivorous animals and can also be fed to monogastrics protein content in the leaves and young stems with a good essential amino acid profile varies from 15 to 28 depending on the variety mineral content is high and no anti nutritional factors or toxic compounds have been identified the establishment of this perennial forage is through stakes or seed and it is harvested by leaf picking or cutting whole branches or stems yields depend on variety location monthly temperature solar radiation and rainfall plant density fertilizer application and harvesting technique but in terms of digestible nutrients mulberry produces more than most traditional forages the leaves can be used as supplements replacing concentrates for dairy cattle as the main feed for goats sheep and rabbits and as in ingredient in monogastric diets introduction mulberry morus spp leaves have been the traditional feed for the silk worm bombyx mori there is evidence that sericulture started about 5 000 years ago huo yongkang south china agricultural university personal communication and hence the domestication of mulberry mulberry has been selected and improved for leaf quality and yield for a long time through silk production projects mulberry has been taken to countries all over the world and it has now spread from the temperate areas of northwest and central asia europe and north america through the tropics of asia africa and latin america to the southern hemisphere southern africa and south america there are mulberry varieties for many environments from sea level to altitudes of 4 000m fao 1990 and from the humid tropics to semi arid lands like in the near east with 250mm of annual rainfall and southwest of the u s a tipton 1994 mulberry is also produced under irrigation although the majority of silk production projects have had limited duration due to silk processing constraints and limited market opportunities mulberry trees have remained in most places where they had been introduced the main use of mulberry globally is as feed for the silk worm but depending on the location it is also appreciated for its fruit consumed fresh in juice or as preserves as a delicious vegetable young leaves and stems for its medicinal properties in infusions mulberry leaf tea for landscaping and as animal feed in peru the multiple uses of mulberry have been recognised zepeda 1991 there are several places where mulberry is utilised traditionally as a feed in mixed forage diets for ruminants like in certain areas of india china and afghanistan in italy there has been several studies on the use of mulberry for dairy cows and other domestic animals vezzani 1938 maymone et al 1959 bonciarelli and santilocchi 1980 talamucci and pardini 1993 and in france there was a research project to introduce mulberry in livestock production armand 1995 but it was only in the eighties that specific interest in the intensive cultivation and use of mulberry as animal feed started in latin america it is surprising that a plant which has been improved for leaf quality and yield to feed an animal the silk worm which has high nutritional feed requirements received limited attention by livestock producers technicians and researchers like several significant breakthroughs in science and technology the discovery of the value of mulberry as a high quality feed in latin america happened serendipitously a costa rican farmer of chinese origin whose silk project failed fed mulberry leaves to his goats and was impressed by its palatability and by the performance of his animals he communicated his observations to scientist of the tropical agriculture research and training center catie who were receptive to the farmer s news and smart enough to include mulberry in their tree fodder evaluations and later in agronomic and animal performance trials j benavides personal communication in africa the international centre for research in agroforestry icraf in kenya and the livestock production research institute in tanzania have conducted successful agronomic and animal trials by themselves apparently without being aware of the interest elsewhere genetic resources mulberry belongs to the moraceae family subtype angiosperms class dicotyledons subclass urticales and there are several species morus alba m nigra m indica m laevigata m bombycis etc which have been used directly or through crossings and induced mutations for the development of varieties to support silk worm production the diploid m alba 2n 2x 28 is the species most widely spread but polyploid varieties which originated in various research stations in asia show greater leaf yields and quality in general polyploid varieties have thicker and larger leaves with darker green colour and produce more leaves there is a large variation in leaf production and in leaf quality e g protein content among the many species and in the varieties and cultivars grown at different locations under a wide range of soil and environmental conditions indicating the huge potential for identifying suitable germoplasm for most sites many of the references on mulberry in the literature do not specify which species or varieties were used often names are given based on leaf features in many cases locally grown varieties native or criolla seem to perform adequately since they are probably well adapted to local conditions composition and nutritive value results of chemical composition of mulberry fractions from various authors are presented in table 1 crude protein content in leaves varies from as low as 15 to 28 depending on the variety age of the leaves and growing conditions in general crude protein values can be considered similar to most legume forages fibre fractions are low in mulberry leaves compared to other foliages shayo 1997 reported lignin acid detergent lignin contents of 8 1 and 7 1 for leaves and bark respectively a striking feature of mulberry leaves is the mineral content with ash values up to 25 typical calcium contents are around 1 8 2 4 and phosphorus 0 14 0 24 espinoza et al 1999 found potassium values of 1 90 2 87 in leaves and 1 33 1 53 in young stems and magnesium contents of 0 47 0 63 for leaves and 0 26 0 35 for young stems table 2 shows the digestibility of mulberry as can be seen leaf digestibilities in vivo goats and in vitro are very high 80 and total digestibility is equivalent to that of most tropical forages the degradation characteristics of mulberry determined by the nylon bag technique are presented in table 3 leaves would be completely degraded if they remained in the rumen for enough time maymone et al 1959 table 1 chemical composition of dry matter of mulberry variety cp cf ndf adf ee ash ca p reference leaf hebba l 15 9 12 6 7 1 15 9 2 42 0 24 narayana setty 1977 izatnagar 1 15 0 15 3 7 4 14 3 2 41 0 24 jayal kehar 1962 palampur 1 15 0 11 8 5 1 15 5 singh et al 1984 parbhani 1 22 1 5 9 3 9 13 4 3 3 1 43 deshmukh et al 1993 kanva 2 16 7 11 3 32 3 3 0 17 3 1 80 0 14 trigueros villalta 1997 mpwapwa 1 18 6 24 6 20 8 14 3 shayo 1997 dominican 20 0 23 1 4 0 4 5 2 70 ita 2 1998 criolla 19 8 1 90 0 28 espinoza et al 1999 tigreada 21 1 2 74 0 38 indonesia 20 1 2 87 0 33 leaf young stem tigreada 27 6 13 2 10 4 0 20 gonzález et al 1998 indonesia 24 3 15 3 11 2 0 29 criolla 27 6 16 9 11 8 0 26 acorazonada 25 2 14 1 13 4 0 15 koruso 21 2 11 0 10 0 22 0 20 6 5 9 13 9 3 13 0 37 casoli et al 1986 koruso 21 3 8 0 11 8 24 7 24 5 5 3 19 3 4 76 0 37 young stem criolla 11 3 1 33 0 29 espinoza et al 1999 tigreada 11 7 1 38 0 33 indonesia 11 9 1 53 0 43 dominican 4 7 48 2 1 7 1 3 1 61 ita 2 1998 stem dominican 3 8 50 2 1 0 1 8 1 10 ita 2 1998 mallur 11 5 34 0 2 7 9 32 1 56 0 20 subba rao et al 1971 bark mpwapwa 7 8 46 8 36 9 6 1 shayo 1997 whole plant dominican 11 3 34 4 1 6 1 9 2 10 ita 2 1998 1 names of places where local varieties were used 2 september 1982 3 november 1983 table 2 digestibility of mulberry method fraction digestibility reference in vivo goats leaf 78 4 80 8 jegou et al 1994 in vitro leaf 89 2 araya 1990 cited by rodríguez et al 1994 leaf 80 2 schenk 1974 cited by rodríguez et al 1994 leaf 89 95 rodríguez et al 1994 stem 37 44 total 58 79 leaf 82 1 shayo 1997 bark 60 3 table 3 in sacco degradation of mulberry ita 2 1998 fraction parameter reference a b a b c leaf 35 7 64 0 99 7 0 0621 ita 2 1998 whole plant 30 4 46 2 76 6 0 0667 leaf young stem 27 8 48 95 76 8 0 0300 gonzález et al 1998 the average amino acid composition and n content of 119 mulberry varieties grown experimentally in japan machii 1989 are presented in table 4 tryptophane was not included in the analysis as can be seen from the data essential amino acids are over 46 of total amino acids it can be calculated from the table that the average nitrogen n is 16 6 of the total molecular weight of the mulberry amino acids plus ammonia and thus the converting factor from n to mulberry protein is 6 02 the 204 3 mg of amino acids per g of protein is equivalent to 3 47 n which is 80 of total n in mulberry leaves once tryptophane is subtracted the difference a non protein fraction is likely to be composed of nucleic acids and other unidentified n compounds table 4 average amino acid composition and n content of mulberry varieties machii 1989 and soybean meal nrc 1984 compound soybean meal mulberry content mg g dm 1 content mg g dm sd 1 non essential amino acids n a 2 108 93 53 3 essential amino acids eaa lysine 32 92 6 7 12 33 2 58 6 0 methionine 7 30 1 5 2 99 0 61 1 5 threonine 20 34 4 1 10 52 1 75 5 2 valine 26 29 5 3 12 83 2 17 6 3 isoleucine 26 85 5 4 10 04 1 88 4 9 leucine 39 55 8 0 19 45 3 10 3 1 tyrosine 14 38 2 9 7 40 1 39 3 6 phenylalanine 25 51 5 2 12 26 2 06 6 0 histidine 12 92 2 6 4 61 0 82 2 3 trytophane 6 97 1 4 n a 2 total eaa 213 03 43 1 92 43 3 45 3 ammonia nh3 n a 2 2 89 0 54 1 4 total aa nh3 494 38 100 204 25 100 nitrogen 7 91 4 36 9 63 1 percenta...