Impact of Supplementation of UMMB Licks in the Ration of Dairy Animals

Abstract

India is the highest milk producing country in the world and by the end of 2022, India aims at producing 172 MMT milk at an annual growth rate of 4%. This is attributed to large livestock population rather than the productivity. Average livestock productivity in India is quite low due to poor genetic potential, nutrition and management of animal. Nutrition plays pivotal role in exploiting the genetic potential of dairy animal.  But in India the biomass resources are very limited and there is shortage of feed and fodder.  The available feed resources would need to be utilized judiciously with value addition.  Introduction of UMMB lick technology is one of the methods developed in recent year to combat the nutritional status of dairy animals. NDDB has developed UMMB manufacturing technology, provided to dairy cooperatives, private organizations and internal agencies. UMMB licks are also manufactured in different states under the co-operative sector. The UMMB lick allows the slow ingestion of urea which in turn is efficiently utilized by the rumen microbes. Several experiments conclude that supplementation of UMMB licks significantly increased feed intake, milk yield, maintained body weight and body conditions score of the cows. Hence in the present article the utility of UMMB supplementation technology, its cost-effective approach to maximizing utilization of locally available feed resources and performance of dairy animals will be discussed.