EVALUATION OF THE NITROGEN FRACTIONS IN MILK OF BUNAJI (WHITE FULANI) CATTLE IN A HOT AND HUMID ENVIRONMENT

Abstract

One hundred milliliters of milk produced in the first 150 days of lactation of 24. Bunaji (White Fulani) cattle in Ibadan contained an average of 703, 659, 44, 557, 146, 21, 27 and 54 mg total nitrogen (TN), protein nitrogen (PN), non-protein nitrogen (NPN), casein nitrogen (CN), non-casein nitrogen NCN), proteoses-peptone nitrogen (PPN), lactoglobulin nitrogen (LGN) and lactalbumin nitrogen (LAN) respectively. CN, NCN, PN, NPN, PPN, LGN and LAN accounted for 79.2, 20.8, 93.7, 63, 3.1, 3.9 and 7.6% of TN respectively. CN constituted 833% of PN while one-third of NCN consisted of P PN and LGN. The most abundant component of NCN was LAN which occurred twice as high as LGN. The influence of stage of lactation was significant (P < 0.05) on TN, more remarkable on PN and CN but not significant (P >005) on NCN, NPN, PPN, LGN and LAN, Only TN and CN were significantly (P < 0.05) correlated (r 0.989). The positive or negative relationships between the other nitrogen fractions were trivial.