| Summary: | To anticipate the problem of forage shortage during dry season in Indonesia, the usage of unconventional feedstuffs such as agricultural crop residues (Utomo, 2015) and livestock waste as feed is one of the strategies that can be applied. This strategy may optimize the use of natural resources for the benefit of livestock production in concern with environment sustainability (Anonymous, 1996). One of livestock waste that can be used as a feed substitute for forage basal feed is rumen contents from slaughter houses, which until now was discarded or only used as organic fertilizer. The increase of slaughtered cattle to meet the needs of meat was followed by raising amount of rumen contents, which causing pollution problems in urban areas. Each cattle slaughtered would produce about 24.5 kg of fresh rumen contents or 3.8 kg in dry matter, since they contain 15.5% dry matter (Witherow and Lammers, 1976). The use of rumen contents from a slaughter house as feed for cattle have been reported by Messermith (1973) which used rumen content in the ration up to 15% and produced similar average daily gain (ADG), feed consumption, feed efficiency, and feed conversion compared to those fed with control ration.
Ensilage is one of the ways to prevent spoilage, maintain nutritional value, and in this case can eliminate the
typical odor of rumen contents. Ensilage is a preservation method performed by fermentation process. The main products in the ensilage are lactic acids which act as preservatives. To increase the dry matter of rumen contents for ideal ensiling (35% DM), dried cassava pomace has been added, while molasses was added to increase the water soluble carbohydrate content.
This study was done to determine the effect of using rumen contents silage as a substitute for basal feed (forage) in beef cattle ration on production performance and carcass percentage of Ongole crossbred cattle.
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