author(s)
Imran Ahmad Ganai, Ankur Rastogi, RK Sharma, Himalaya Kumar and Shamim Ali

abstract
The present study scrutinized the effect of wheat and paddy straws when fed as a combination as compared to when fed as sole roughage on Ca and P balance in goats. Eighteen non-descript local adult male goats were randomly divided into three equal groups as per randomized block design and were offered concentrate mixture @20g /kg W^0.75 along with either wheat straw (WS); paddy straw (PS) or wheat-paddy straw as 60:40 mix (WP) ad libitum. Feeding trial for 30 days duration was conducted. Net balance of calcium was significantly higher (P<0.05) in WS (1.52±0.357) in comparison to PS (0.40±0.175) and WP (0.89±0.095) fed groups, whereas phosphorous balance does not different significantly (P>0.05) among different experimental groups, irrespective of the diets. It may be concluded that wheat and paddy straw can be used as sole roughage or in combination, however, calcium uptake is negatively affected under paddy straw based diet, which can be partially alleviated by using 60:40 combination of wheat and paddy straw.