Kinetics of Agricultural Waste Gas Production as an Alternative Feed for Ruminants

Feed in Indonesia is still a major obstacle in animal husbandry both in quantity and quality, so the use of forage other than cultivated grass and field grass is an alternative in meeting the needs of livestock. One of the animal feeds forages that can be an alternative is agricultural by product, but the quality of agricultural by product varies in each region so that it requires both chemical and biological analysis to determine its quality. This study aims to determine the quality of digestibility of agricultural by product that can be used as alternative feed in ruminants using gas production techniques. The agricultural by-product used amounted to 6 pieces originating from the Lembang dairy farm. The results of the study showed 6 types of agricultural by-products consisting of rice straw, peanut shells, banana leaves, pumpkin leaves, sweet potato leaves and chicory. Judging from the results of gas production kinetics, peanut shells have the potential to be used as a single feed ingredient or as an additional feed ingredient for forage sources because of the high (a + b) value and low c constant which means that peanut shells are a type of feed ingredient that is slow to ferment but produces maximum gas. In addition to gas kinetics, the digestibility value of organic matter, metabolic energy (EM) and short-chain fatty acids of peanut shell agricultural by-product is quite high compared to other agricultural by-products, so that peanut shells can be used as a supplementary feed