Intake, digestibility, nitrogen efficiency, and animal performance of growing and finishing beef cattle fed warm-season legume (Stylosanthes capitata plus Stylosanthes macrocephala) silage replacing corn silage1

Autor:	W. F. Souza, Odilon Gomes Pereira, Stefanie Alvarenga Santos, Karina Guimarães Ribeiro, S.C. Valadares Filho
Rok vydání:	2014
Předmět:	biology Silage Forage General Medicine Beef cattle biology.organism_classification Rumen Animal science Agronomy Stylosanthes Latin square Genetics Animal Science and Zoology Legume Completely randomized design Food Science
Zdroj:	Journal of Animal Science. 92:4099-4107
ISSN:	1525-3163 0021-8812
DOI:	10.2527/jas.2013-7480
Popis:	It was hypothesized that Stylosanthes cv. Campo Grande (ES) silage could be used as the single source of dietary forage for beef cattle and that performance on ES would be similar to corn silage (CS) at a 50:50 forage:concentrate. The objectives of this study were to evaluate intake, total and partial digestibility of nutrients, ruminal pH, ruminal ammonia, and productive performance in growing beef cattle fed diets with varying proportions of ES silage replacing CS. Treatments consisted of diets with ratios of 0:100, 25:75, 50:50, 75:25, and 100:0% ES:CS. Two experiments were conducted simultaneously. In the first experiment, 10 crossbred Holstein-Zebu bulls with an average initial weight of 272 ± 86 kg were used. The bulls were rumen and abomasums fistulated. An experimental design of two 5 × 5 Latin squares (Exp. 1) was used. The second experiment used 40 Nellore bulls with an average BW of 386 ± 30 kg in a completely randomized design (Exp. 2). Results showed a linear increase in CP intake (P 0.05). There was also no effect (P > 0.05) of ES inclusion on animal performance. Ruminal pH was not affected by an increased proportion of ES in the diet (P > 0.05), but ruminal pH was affected (P < 0.05) by the time of collection, for which a cubic model fit the data. There was an interaction (P < 0.05) between treatment and collection time for ruminal ammonia nitrogen concentration. It can be concluded that ES silage can be used as a source of roughage in the diet of beef cattle during the growing and finishing phases at a proportion of 50% of DM in the total diet. Therefore, ES silage is a promising alternative dietary ingredient and the use of this alternative source of silage will depend on availability and economic factors.
Databáze:	OpenAIRE
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