Chemical composition and nutritional value of urea treated rice straw for ruminants

Rice straw is the most abundant agricultural-byproduct in Asian countries, but its utilization as animal feed is poor. The main constraint to increasing its utilization as animal feed is the poor intake and digestibility as caused by the low crude protein contents and high lignification and silicification of cell wall. One cheap and practical way to overcome the problems is through fermentation with urea. To generate information about chemical composition and nutritive value of of urea treated rice straw as animal feed, literatures in Google Scholar, CAB Abstracts, Web of Science, PubMed and Scopus were searched. From those databases, nutritional composition and nutritive value of untreated and urea treated rice straw are elaborated and reviewed. Means of improving animal production of animals fedurea treated rice straw are highlighted and discussed.