FEEDING AND NUTRITION OF MITHUN---SVVU---NTR CVSc Gannavaram---Dr Balakesava Reddy Jangam

1. FEEDING AND NUTRITION OF
MITHUN
Presented by:
J. Bala Kesava Reddy,
GVM/16-005,
Department Of Animal Nutrition,
NTR College Of Veterinary Science.

2. INTRODUCTION:
Mithun (Bos frontalis) is considered to be the domesticated form of wild
gaur (Bos gaurus).
It is believed to be domesticated more than 8000 years ago.
It is mainly found in the four North-Eastern hilly states of India i.e.
Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Mizoram and Manipur.
Mithun is an extremely efficient grazer on steep hilly slopes compared to
other animals.
It is primarily reared as meat animal and is highly preferred among the
tribal people of North- Eastern India.

4. The gayal differs in several important particulars from the gaur:
Smaller, with proportionately shorter limbs, and stands much lower at
the withers.
The head is shorter and broader, with a perfectly flat forehead and a
straight line between the bases of the horns.
Their extremities are thus much farther apart than in the gaur.
The female gayal is much smaller than the bull, and has scarcely any
dewlap on the throat.
The skin colour of the head and body is blackish-brown in both sexes,
and the lower portion of the limbs are white or yellowish.

5. FEEDING HABIT OF MITHUN:
Reared exclusively under free grazing condition.
Mithun basically thrives on the jungle forages, tree fodders, shrubs, herbs and other natural
vegetations.
It browse and moves around the forest in search of selective forages as farmers do not
provide any additional feeding.
They occasionally provide common salt, especially at the time of restraining for some
purposes.
The owner of the animals sometimes produces a sound out of the musical instrument
prepared by horn and by hearing the sound, the mithun comes from jungle in search of
common salt.
In the hilly areas of NE region, leaching of minerals by rain water is a common
phenomenon especially during rainy season.
So soils are deficient in some important mineral elements reducing the level of minerals in
the vegetation.
Salt licking behavior t by the animals is a way to meet the requirement of minerals.

7. TREE LEAVES AS CHEAP SOURCE OF NUTRIENTS:
Availability of tree foliages in North East India is plenty as it is covered with
forests.
Tree forages not only provide a cheap source of nitrogen, energy and micronutrients
but also have many other advantages like their laxative influence on the alimentary
system, low degradability of nitrogen in the rumen, and above all the scope of adding
variety to the diet.
However, presence of anti-nutritional factors like tannin in most of the leaves limit
their use as sole fodder.
Many of the tree leaves and shrubs available in North Eastern Hilly region for
feeding of mithun were identified and analysed for chemical composition and as per
the findings, the tree leaves/shrubs like Melia azadiracta, Adenoscicme longifolia,
Trema orientalis, Ficus hookeri, Macaranga denticulata were found to be promising
as these contain more protein than cultivated (Table 1).

8. TABLE 1: Nutrient composition (g kg-1 DM) of individual forest-based foliages
Name of the fodders
DM CP EE NDF ADF ADL Ash CT
Local Name Botanical
Tao Ficus roxburghii 267 178 23 397 287 74 92 25
Taachin Ficus racemosa 351 151 23 489 330 82 102 30
Nyeihi Ficus hirta 236 156 18 453 322 96 62 31
Aa-hate Dendrocalamus
hamiltonii 302 162 16 520 426 90 71 68
Taan yaan Pouzulzia sanguinea 356 146 21 460 312 132 91 41
Hara Macaranga
denticulata 378 139 37 531 387 146 56 53
Dae-dasa Melastomia sp 276 137 20 530 321 123 48 56
Rudie Phegopeteris auritica 231 190 17 402 273 69 90 63
Tayir Litsea cintreta 225 201 54 390 269 72 70 45
Perelough Sita acuta 270 149 31 551 382 129 91 27
Yal Trema orientalis 369 106 14 573 426 162 63 64
Gansap Crassocephalum
craposids 375 142 16 480 317 103 72 53

9. Remter Mastersia assamica 219 210 20 401 303 89 126 19
Yare Piper peticellosum 238 193 19 386 246 101 74 22
Nik-nare Oreochnide integrifolia 267 164 34 456 316 116 57 37
Donyibubch Lenia indica 310 162 27 487 347 162 71 43
Pahe Seteria pamifolia 196 68.1 21 619 460 149 81 67
Ekembin Polygonum runcinatum 239 102 18 517 369 120 46 60
Leanyetoku Ficus fistulosa 347 133 15 522 384 164 51 19
Gahorisopa Magnolia pterocarpa 398 115 17 556 401 97 61 44
Koplopya Daubanga grandiflora 271 156 23 456 327 123 92 22
Byake Solanum kurzii 236 257 31 374 236 97 89 20
Chuchum Ficus sp. - 301 153 22 483 359 132 76 30
Donyichurd Mussanda roxburghii 330 99.7 23 589 435 169 103 43
Tale Wallichia den si flora 254 69.7 31 623 497 174 73 37
Telpep Hedychium spicatum 297 115 28 461 330 121 69 12

10. Jehea Thysaloena sp. 314 51.3 17 509 371 102 70 32
Echintayin Costus specious 356 119 37 469 310 99 65 21
Hujhobup Polygonum sp. 410 121 12 513 376 123 46 09
Tatumnalu Pilea glaberrima 323 181 24 423 267 108 73 19
Paph Hedychium flavum 291 130 22 536 321 164 126 62
Kuto Ficus sp. 327 169 40 503 337 98 103 54
Poahibu Thumbergia 278 139 30 486 289 145 68 12
Baum Angiopetris evecta 273 157 21 450 278 96 51 23
Phapumlalu Sterculia villosa 327 144 10 479 312 99 63 32
Techir Pinnaga gracilis 246 118 25 598 427 146 49 57
Puprarninch Saurauia roxyburglis 319 112 23 621 460 103 41 32
Tago Brassigophishainla 264 89.5 18 679 482 147 79 58

12. ADL, acid detergent lignin; CT, condensed tannins:
Tree foliage is natural source of bypass protein in the diet of ruminants as they contain
certain endogenous secondary plant metabolites such as tannins to bind with protein and
protect them from microbial attack.
When condensed tannin containing herbage is masticated, condensed tannin protein
complexes are formed, these are stable over the pH range of 3.5-7.0 but dissociate in the
abomasums and anterior duodenum.
This protects the protein from microbial hydrolysis and deamination in the rumen and
increases the proportion of dietary amino acids availability for postruminal absorption, since
the tannin protein complex is assumed to dissociate at low pH of abomasums.
However, higher condensed tannins are claimed to have the potential to modify rumen
fermentation.
Higher levels of condensed tannins are reported to negatively affect rumen fermentation.
Effect of condensed tannin on the performance of mithun is yet to be worked out.

13. Effect of Tree Leaves Supplementation on Performance of
Animals:
Feeding the animals with tree leaves/shrubs is a common practice in hilly states of NE region.
This feeding system is not only practical but also appears to be somewhat scientific.
On comparing the performance of mithun on feeding napier + concentrate with that of paddy straw +
concentrate, it was found lower on the later.
It was demonstrated that feeding of tree leaves and straw mix can be a practical method for mithun
in captivity.
Lagerstroemia speciosa (Thumero), an important tree foliage having good nutritive value (8 %DCP
and 48 %TDN), is liked by mithun under natural browsing condition.
Its inclusion as green foliage in total mixed ration (TMR) at 30% level improved higher daily body
weight gain, dry matter (DM) intake and feed conversion ratio in growing mithuns than those fed
straw based TMR.
Similarly, Ficus hirta and Borrena hirticulata, other important foliages in the NEH region, can be
incorporated in TMR of mithun.
Feeding of mixed tree leaves appeared to be practical and scientific instead of a single tree leaves as
mixed tree leaves provide a variety to the diet, however proportion of mixed tree leaves should not
exceed 50% level in TMR.

14. COMPARATIVE PERFORMANCE OF MITHUN AND CATTLE:
Mithun is mainly reared under free grazing condition and meat of this animal is very much
preferred by the tribal population.
Mithun meat was analyzed in this institute for muscle, liver, kidney, skin and blood and as
per the findings highest moisture (84.85%) and fat contents (8.70%) were recorded in the
kidney while the skin recorded a highest level of CP (27.89 %) on fresh basis.
The muscles contained 17.90 percentage of CP on fresh basis.
On dry basis, 96.54, 89.40, 84.51, 76.56 and 72.54 percentage of CP was recorded in skin,
blood, muscle, kidney and liver respectively (Pal, 2000a).
The production of milk is very limited (about 1 to 1.5 liters) but it has higher fat (8.85%),
SNF (11.48%) and total solid (20.33%) than the milk of other domestic animals as well as
Yak.
This unique species has the potentiality to be explored for its milk production.
The haemato-biochemical parameters like haemoglobin, PCV, TEC, TLC, glucose, total
protein, albumin, etc. were higher in mithun followed by mithun X cattle and cattle.

15. On forages, CP intake/ unit body weight in mithun calves remains lower than in
crossbred calves (Bos indicus x Bos taurus), which results in significantly higher CP
in mithun calves.
On long term feeding on mixed tree leaves based ration, body weight gain was higher
in mithun thereby the dressing percentage as well as the quality of meat was higher
than in Tho-tho cattle (Bos indicus) despite the similar nutrient digestibility in both
species.
Dry matter (DM) consumption per day was 6.59 kg for mithun and 5.85 kg for Tho-
tho cattle.
Quality of Mithun hides was better than those of cattle.
Better performance of mithun than cattle indicates that the mithun has higher
growth potential than Tho-tho cattle.

16. SCOPE FOR FORAGE RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT:
There is vast scope to fit forage crops in the agricultural and non-agricultural land use systems in
mithun inhabited states, where paddy is the major crop and availability of paddy straw is abundant.
Due to lack of awareness and practice of feeding rice straw to the ruminants, especially to mithuns,
farmers allow rice straw to be decomposed in the field with a notion to increase the soil fertility.
This can be utilized as a major source of roughage for mithun.
However, among annual forage crops, oat can be grown where one or two irrigations are made
available from perennial or seasonal water springs.
Besides grasses grown in humid agro-climatic conditions, maize, cowpea and soybean can be
successfully grown during pre-kharif and kharif season, which may yield 200-500 q/ha green forage.
Most of the grasses produce forage during April to October.
Among these grasses, a multipurpose plant, Thysanolaena agortis / T. maxima (Broom grass) remains
green during the lean period (dry winter months).
Total green forage biomass production and nutrients availability was more from cultivated napier
than natural grass and so cultivation of napier grass could be adopted on the hillock of NEHR to
mitigate the balance between availability and nutrients requirement of mithun.

17. FEEDING STANDARD AND FEEDING OF MITHUN:
Feeding standards are available for cattle, buffaloes, sheep, goat, however, there is
no such standard for mithun as its requirements for different physiological functions
have not been worked so far.
The work has been initiated at National Research Centre on mithun and adequate
information will be available in near future.
In the meantime feeding standards for cattle may be used.

18. Feeding of Mithun:
Forest grasses and mixed forages do not meet the nutritional requirements of animals under stall feeding.
However, animals meet their requirements under grazing by the selective consumption of nutritious parts of
vegetation available in forest areas but their growth varies across different seasons.
To achieve the maximum productivity of animals during flush season of tree fodders, salt and mineral
mixture may be fed together to the animals to avoid mineral deficiency.
During lean season, when availability of forest grasses goes down, concentrate mixture (20% CP and 70%
TDN) fortified with salt and mineral mixture may be fed at the rate of 1 to 2 kg per animal daily up to 2
years and 2 to 4 kg per animal daily above 2 years.
For lactating mithun as it produces less quantity of milk, additional feeding is not required.
However, scientific information is not available on effect of concentrate feeding on milk production in
mithun.
In free range these feed supplements may be provided to the mithun in the shed, constructed in strategic
location in grazing area, while under semi intensive system the feed supplements may be provided in the shed
in late evening or early morning when animals are tied.
Due to deforestation, urbanization, shifting cultivation, intensive inbreeding, disease problems etc. the
mithun are under severe threat.
Therefore, it is recommended that mithun may be fed in semi-intensive or intensive system along with
concentrate mixture.

19. Water Metabolism:
Average water consumption of adult mithun, irrespective of sex, has been recorded to be
0.31 ± 0.017 lit/ kg W0.75 /day.
Female mithun consume more water than male mithun which could be attributed to the
some special physiological functions in females.
In the two systems of feeding i.e. free grazing and free grazing with concentrate, Water
consumption in animals under free grazing combined with concentrate supplementation has
been recorded to be higher than those on grazing only.
It is suggestive of the fact that consumption of dry feed increased the water requirement as
observed in other species.
Total water intake in growing mithun calves was found to be influenced by the season and
it was comparatively higher during pre-monsoon season (April to May) than other seasons.
For mithun the drinking water requirement is approximately 9% and 12% of body weight
during winter and summer, respectively.

20. Mineral Nutrition:
Minerals play a vital role in productive and reproductive performance in animals and their deficiency
may affect the digestive, physiological and biosynthetic processes of the body therby affect the animal
performance.
In many parts of India, animal productivity has become limited because of deficiency or imbalances
of both macro and micro-minerals.
Most of the foliages contain adequate Ca and K (< 1%), P (0.12-0.40%), Mg (< 0.17%) and trace
elements (Cu, Fe, Mn, Zn) but their Na content is invariably is low.
High Ca content of the foliages can be useful for high yielding cattle and buffaloes to prevent milk
fever.
In some places, lactating animals are traditionally offered T. orientalis.
This practice has scientific basis as it is rich in Ca.
Na deficiency in all the foliages could be the reason why, the mithun shows the salt hunger behavior
that are reared in natural habitat in contrast to those kept under confined condition.
The concentration of Ca was higher than P, it is likely that Ca: P ratio enhances as the foliages are
the sole feeding source for mithun, which could create some problem with Ca: P and vitamin D
metabolism.

21. Feeding of Tree Leaves Based Feed Blocks:
The feed blocks based on chopped paddy straw and dried tree leaves as a source of
roughage can be prepared in an electrically operated hydraulic press.
These roughages and concentrate mixture are incorporated in proper proportion and
mixed thoroughly.
The mixed materials are then put in the hopper of the feed block machine which in
turn applies hydraulic pressure (2500 psi) for a predetermined time (3 Min.) resulting
the densification of whole material in the form of a feed block of desired shape, size
and weight.
Handling, transportation and storage of these feed blocks are require less labour cost
and less space besides avoiding the wastage of precious feedstuff.

22. Yeast Supplementation:
Dietary supplementation of yeast ((Sacharomyces cerevisiae) in cattle
improves growth and feed efficiency.
The yeast can also be fed to Mithun in free range and semi-domesticated
condition for economizing the production and also for improving their
overall health status.
Male mithun (Bos frontalis) calves were fed jungle grass (Borrena
hirticuluta) based diet supplemented with 5 to 6 g dried Baker’s yeast
(Sacharomyces cerevisiae) containing 20 billion CFU/g for 16 weeks of
age.
Yeast supplementation improved the growth rate by 20% and voluntatry
DM intake, thereby the FCR showing the utility of the yeast in mithun’s
ration.

23. Isolation of Rumen Microbes and Manipulation of
Rumen:
In view of the adaptability of mithun in harsh climatic condition and its ability to
produce on limited feed resources, where other domestic animals possibly can’t
survive, it may be hypothesized that the mithun’s rumen possibly harbours some
microorganisms that are genetically different and must be more efficient compared to
other domesticated and wild ruminant species.
Therefore, efforts are being made for isolation and characterization of superior fibre
degrading microbes and manipulation of rumen ecosystem, of mithun for improving
fibre degradation.

24. Enhancement of Growth Using GH-Releasing Factor:
Growth hormone (GH) is a major regulator of growth and development during postnatal life, by
influencing key metabolic pathways of intermediary metabolism.
Exogenous GH for enhancement of growth had been tried in farm animals with varying success.
Repeated exogenous GH has met with limited success due to refractoriness of GH synthesis and
release from adenohypophysis because of negative feedback effects of insulin-like growth factor-I
released from the liver in response to exogenous GH.
A direct administration of a neurohormone, namely GH-releasing factor (GRF), in its synthetic or
recombinant form, took forefront as an alternative measure for enhancement of growth because of
being active in a wide range of species.
Thus, GRF treatment could potentially be used to accelerate growth of animals of commercial
importance.
The pituitary gland does not become refractory to exogenous GRF and its administration continues
to induce and even enhances endogenous GH release without any sign of refractoriness.
GRF at the dose rate of lO/xg/100kg body weight enhances growth rate and also induces higher
pulsatility with greater amplitude of LH, an indicator of sexual maturity in female.
Therefore there is a possibility of practical application of GRF in improving the productivity of
mithun.

25. SUMMARY:
Lots of information on basic and applied nutrition of mithun has been generated in the
National Research Centre on Mithun, Nagaland and the institute has been trying to
demonstrate the different technologies for improving the productivity of mithun.
Some motivation programmes have also been arranged to educate the farmers on different
technologies like use of balanced ration for better growth, health and production.
But mithun husbandry, though it is a promising component in hilly livestock production
system is linked with some age-old social values and ethics.
We have to respect their feelings while motivating them for a new system of mithun
husbandry.
So it is a great challenge for the scientific community to bring this animal to a prestigious
place in hilly livestock production system.
Once we generate a sizable number of Mithun with scientific rearing and feeding, it will
be easier for us to convince livestock fanners to rear mithun for economic and social gain.

26. National Research Centre on Mithun (NRCM)
The NRCM was established at Jharnapani, Dimapur, Nagaland under the
Indian Council of Agriculture Research.
The mandate of the institute has revised in 87 Annual General Meeting of the
ICAR Society held on 4th Febrary, 2016.
Currently, the NRCM is functioning for developing the scientific and
sustainable mithun rearing system and for catering the needs of mithun farmers
with the following mandates:
Identification, evaluation and characterization of mithun germplasm.
Improvement of mithun for meat and milk.
Repository of information on mithun.

27. Functions of Animal Nutrition Section:
Identification, nutritional evaluation and preservation of locally available feeds and fodders, and
determination of nutrient requirements and feed efficiency of mithun are the central areas of research.
Barring few, most of the forages that were analyzed for their nutrient contents can serve as good sources
of protein and energy for mithun and contained phenolic compounds within the limit.
Assessing the macro- as well as micro-mineral contents of soil, feeds and fodders as well as in the serum of
mithun, an area specific mineral mixture, entitled with the trademark ‘uthimin’, was developed.
Determining the protein requirement of growing mithun calves, it is suggested that male growing mithun
calves can be reared on 80% crude protein requirement of NRC (1989) recommendations meant for growing
dairy cattle.
The studies on growth rate and feed efficiency are under progress.
Recently much emphasis are being given to preserve the feeds and fodders as well as to exploit the locally
available agro-industrial byproducts like spent grain from breweries industries and wet cake and dried
distillery grains and solubles(DDGS), in the form of feed blocks.
This will help in feeding mithun during scarcity period and economization of mithun rearing systems
especially the intensive and semi-intensive rearing.

28. References:
Animal Nutrition: Advancements in Feeds and Feeding Of Livestock.
-K. C. Das, K. K. Baruah, B. Prakash, N. Haque, M. Mondal and C. Rajkhowa
National Research Centre on Mithun (ICAR), Jhamapani, Medziphema, Nagaland.
http://www.nrcmithun.res.in/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gayal

29. THANK YOU