Effects of grass-red clover silage digestibility and concentrate protein concentration on performance, carcass value, eating quality and economy of finishing Hereford bulls reared in cold conditions

Abstract

The aim of the present experiment was to study the effects of (1) digestibility of grass-red clover silage (GCS) and (2) concentrate protein concentration on the performance, eating quality and economy of Hereford bulls during a six months pre-slaughter period, and reared in cold indoor facilities. Thirty-one bulls with an initial live weight (LW) of 289 kg were selected for a 2 × 2 factorial design experiment consisting of two primary growth GCSs harvested at different maturities (in vitro digestible organic matter (OM) in dry matter (DM), D value: Early-cut, E, 750 g kg -1 DM; Late-cut, L, 699 g kg -1 DM) and two concentrate crude protein concentrations (Medium, M, 170 g kg -1 DM; High, H, 210 g kg -1 DM). The concentrate comprised milled barley and pelleted commercial protein compound and was offered daily on average 3.2 kg DM, including 0.45 and 1.13 kg of rapeseed cake in M and H, respectively. Grass-red clover silage was offered ad libitum. The target cold carcass weight was 330 kg.The proportion of concentrate of the total daily DM intake averaged 0.337 during the entire experiment. Treatments had no effect on the daily intake of GCS, total intake of DM, DM intake kg -1 LW 0.75 and metabolizable energy averaging 6.0 and 9.4 kg DM, 97.4 g and 109.4 MJ, respectively. The digestibility of dietary OM and neutral detergent fibre was lower (p < 0.05, 0.733 vs. 0.769 and 0.625 vs. 0.665) on diet L than on diet E. The animals on diet E tended to consume daily on average 1.29 kg less (p < 0.10) DM kg -1 net weight gain than those on diet L. The time to achieve the target carcass weight was on average 18 days longer (p < 0.01) on diet L than on diet E. During the entire experiment the LW gain averaged 1795 and 1609 g d -1 (p < 0.01) on diets E and L, respectively. The concentrate protein concentration did not affect animal performance. Treatments had no significant effect on the kill-out proportion, EUROP carcass conformation and carcass fat classification which averaged 537 g kg -1 , 6.5 and 3.6, respectively. The eating quality of the tested loins was good. Treatments had only a minor effect on the yield of valuable cuts. It is concluded that the digestibility of silage is important since the early-cut silage improved the growth rate and shortened the finishing period of bulls significantly compared with those fed late-cut silage. The lower yield and, thus, higher unit cost of early-cut silage may, however, invalidate its superiority compared with the late-cut silage. There was no benefit from using concentrate of high protein concentration.

Effect of Summer Supplementary Feeding on Cattle Performance in Low Rainfall Grassland Savanna, South Darfur, Sudan

“…In the groundnut cake supplemented groups perform better than other groups in body length and height. This agrees with [16] that the intake of tropical grass may decline remarked ably when crude protein percentage goes below 6%. This leads to sub-optimum level of nitrogen for the rumen flora, which requires an increase in the amount of feed ingested for improvement of animal performance when grazing such forages to maintain better performance [17].…”

A comparison of first-, second- and third-cut timothy silages in the diets of finishing beef bulls

“…Previous reports have shown no effects of silage digestibility on dressing proportion, carcass conformation and fat scores (Steen 1988b, Cummins et al 2007, Manninen et al 2011). However, increasing energy intake has often increased carcass conformation (Aronen et al 1994, Caplis et al 2005, Pesonen et al 2013, Huuskonen and Huhtanen 2015 and carcass fatness (Huuskonen et al 2007, Pesonen et al 2013, Huuskonen and Huhtanen 2015, Manni et al 2016 of growing and finishing cattle but these effects could not be demonstrated in the present experiment.…”

“…It can be assumed that the main reason for the high growth rate was the effect of high silage digestibility leading to high energy intake. Earlier, also Manninen et al (2011) ) when finishing Hereford bulls were fed highly digestible silage (D values 750 and 699 g kg -1 DM, respectively) and barley-based concentrate supplementation. The improved growth rate on highly digestible silage has previously been confirmed in several studies (e.g.…”

A comparison of the growth and carcass traits between dairy and dairy × beef breed crossbred heifers reared for beef production

“…In addition to above-mentioned variables this dataset included also information of commercial cuttings. Each carcass was cut into valuable cuts: outside round (Musculus semitendinosus), inside round (Musculus semimembranosus), corner round (Musculus quadriceps femoris), roast beef (Musculus gluteus medius), tenderloin (Musculus psoas major) and loin (Musculus longissimus) and subcutaneous fat as described by Manninen et al (2011) and Pesonen et al (2012). All these cuttings were weighed automatically in line and their yields were expressed as percentages of the carcass cold weight (0.98 × carcass hot weight, 50 min post-mortem).…”