Vol. 11, Special Issue 11 (2022)

Cereal straws of wheat, oats, barley, paddy and strovers like sorghum and bajra etc. consists an important significance as it forms the largest proportion of roughage (about 80%) availability. Most of the livestock depends on such fodder alone. The voluntary intake and digestibility of these feeds is also very low thus animals fed on such straws and strovers suffer from malnutrition. Urea treatment is very cheap, simple, scientific and the most successful procedures to improve digestibility of straws and strovers. Optimum rate of application of urea should be in the range of 3-4 kg of urea (3-5% urea) per 100 kg of fodder i.e. 4-5 kg of urea and 60 litres of water per 100 kg of straw. This treatment allows better penetration by rumen microorganisms by weakening the hard cell wall to produce more effective fermentation and liberation of nutrients. Though, there are some factors which need to be considered before processing such as rate of urea, water, treatment period, sealing, environment temperature etc. The advantages in terms of improvement in milk and fat yield, reduction in feed wastage, and improve economy of farmer are promising and encouraging to adopt this method at farmers door.