Mana Mushrooms

Another article on the feeding of bison (rather than tamed ruminants) with p. ostr. substrate (mixed as silage). Again, I have had to copy and paste the article, due to difficulties uploading.

REPORT PREPARED BY

JONETTE SAM
BISON PROJECT, PICURIS PUEBLO
FOR SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES, INC. (SCI) CFRP PROJECT USING SMALL DIAMETER TREES FOR VALUE ADDED PRODUCTS

NOVEMBER, 2006

EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS FEEDING SPENT MUSHROOM SUBSTRATE MIXED WITH ALFALFA TO PICURIS PUEBLO BISON.

SCI has worked with Picuris Pueblo over the last three years on a CFRP pilot project to add value to thinned wood. One of the value added uses was after growing edible mushrooms on the chips, the substrate – rich in proteins and digestible for ruminants – might be made into a silage and fed to the bison as a way to lower animal feeding costs. This is based on work requested by SCI and done in Serbia with Drs. Ivanka Milenkovic and Milan Adamovich, who tested in lab conditions the oyster spent mushroom substrate from New Mexico mixed at 10%, 15%, 20% and 25% with corn as silage and demonstrated it has potential as a suitable animal feed for ruminants such as cows or bison – especially at the 20% level. It was also fed to Serbian cows which ate the mixture willingly.

Under the SCI CFRP project, an experiment was tried in October, 2006 at Picuris Pueblo to see if the bison would eat the mixture of spent mushroom substrate mixed with alfalfa grasses in early September and left for anaerobic treatment for silage for six weeks. We prepared the mixture by using about one inch of alfalfa then one inch of substrate and so on until the bins were filled to the top and pressed down to remove all air. Then the bin cover was taped closed.

After six weeks, it was fed to the bison in mid-November, 2006. While initially smelling and walking away from the silage, the next morning the spent substrate was completely gone with the presumption that the bison ate it although there are no photos to document this.

A further experiment is planned to be conducted using the spent mushroom substrata in bison feeding at Picuris Pueblo in New Mexico, fed fresh directly to the bison as well as a mix with both corn and alfalfa grasses prepared as silage.

*There are two photos that accompany the article above: one of a 25-gallon bucket filled with a straw mixture, presumed to be the substrate/straw mixture described above, the second of a few bison, looking at the block of material... or maybe the camera person.