THE LIVEWEIGHT GAIN OF CATTLE AT PASTURE IN SOUTH SULAWESI SUPPLEMENTED WITH LOCALLY AVAILABLE BY-PODUCTS

Weaner heifers were set stocked at 4/ha on a grass-legume pasture in South Sulawesi, Indonesia, and either unsupplemented (Control) or for 338 days given daily supplements of one of, rice bran (RB) supplied at 1 kg/animal/d, molasses/urea (MU) or 0.5 RB + 0.5 MU (MURB) the amounts of which were adjusted to give similar energy intakes. There were 20 animals in each treatment. A drought resulted in low pasture availability for about half the supplementation period. The LWG per animal in the MURB treatment was 85 kg above that of the control and this was significantly greater (p < 0.01) than those for MU (62.0 kg) or RB (56.2 kg) although the economics favoured the gains from RB which returned over three times the cost of the supplement. Costs could be reduced by supplementing only at times of maximum undernutrition, but such a strategy is of doubtful value in this situation as there was no compensatory LWG and a similar rate of economic return was maintained throughout the period. The results suggest that additional benefits from the supplementation may be improved reproductive performance and more efficient use of pasture.