Increasing levels of concentrate digestibility, performance and ingestive behavior in lambs

Abstract

SUMMARY The objectives of this research were to determine the effects increasing levels of concentrate on nutrients digestibility, performance, economic viability of diets and ingestive behavior of lambs. Fifteen crossbred lambs were used in a randomized complete block design according to initial body weight and age. Lambs were penned individually during 55 days, being 10 days for adaptation of diets and 45 days for data collection. The treatments consisted in three isonitrogenous diets with increasing levels of concentrate: 40, 60, or 80%, in dry matter basis. No effect (P>0.05) were observed on dry matter intake, crude protein intake, crude protein digestibility and neutral detergent fiber digestibility, whereas the dry matter digestibility was lower (P<0.01) for lambs fed diets with 40% of concentrate. The addition of 80% concentrate decreased (P<0.05) neutral detergent fiber intake, however this treatment provided higher average daily gain, followed by 60 and 40% of concentrate. In relation to feeding behavior, the animals fed80% concentrate spent more time with feeding (P<0.05) compared to the other treatments. It is concluded that supplementation of concentrate between 60 to 80% improves dry matter digestibility and performance of crossbred lambs without relevant affect dry matter intake and ingestive behavior. A diet with 80% concentrate provides positive gross margin of profit.

Different roughage:concentrate ratios and water supplies to feedlot lambs: carcass characteristics and meat chemical composition

“…The supply of higher proportions of concentrate has been proposed as a way to increase digestibility and consequently increase weight gain and carcass yield. Parente et al (2016) observed that DM digestibility increased linearly with increasing levels of concentrate in lamb diets.…”

Sugarcane bagasse as only roughage for crossbred lactating cows in semiarid regions

“…A linear increase for feeding time and rumination was observed with bagasse increasing levels, and a linear decrease of idle time (Table 4). The animals spent more time ingesting feed; nevertheless, they presented lower DM intake ( Table 3), suggesting that greater NDF in diets with more inclusion of bagasse increased animal selectivity (Parente et al, 2016) and, as a consequence, feeding efficiency was lower. The highest values observed for rumination time can be justified by the highest NDF intake observed for diets with greater bagasse inclusion.…”

Probióticos Fúngicos Na Dieta De Alto Grão Para Ruminantes

“…O uso de dieta de alto grão para animais ruminantes de pequenos portes tem mostrado ser mais eficiente do que para bovinos. Os ovinos são mais eficientes na mastigação e seleção dos grãos inteiros, melhorando assim seu aproveitamento (PARENTE et al, 2016). O uso de probiótico em dieta de alto grão é pouco usado, contudo estudos têm demonstrado que a adição de probiótico à dieta tem contribuído para o aumento de desempenho animal (RIGOBELO; CARDOZO; MACHADO, 2014).…”

“…Em trabalhos mais recentes sobre dietas com grão inteiro, principalmente milho, sorgo e milheto, a relação grão/núcleo (mineral, vitamínico e proteico), é de 85:15%, respectivamente (DIAS et al, 2016;FRUET et al, 2016;PARENTE et al, 2016), sendo o núcleo um complemento àa deficiência do grão para atender às exigências dos ruminantes. São observadas também outras relações, tais como, 60:40% -concentrado:núcleo (GRILLI et al, 2016;ABAKER et al, 2017;ZHANG et al, 2018) ou 65:20:15% -grão:volumoso:núcleo, sendo que nessa última condição o volumoso tem como objetivo aumentar a fonte de fibra na dieta (OLIVEIRA et al, 2015a;FRUET et al, 2016).…”

“…Trabalhos como os de Parente et al (2016), Caetano et al (2019) e Oliveira et al (2015a) têm comprovado ganhos na terminação de animais alimentados com dieta contendo alta concentração de grãos e baixa concentração de volumoso, relação 85:15%, respectivamente. Contudo, frequentemente os mecanismos fisiológicos de homeostase são rompidos, ocorrendo redução do pH ruminal, com alterações que podem ser prejudiciais à microbiota do rúmen e deixam o animal mais susceptível a doenças metabólicas e infecciosas (DONG et al, 2013;SEDDIK et al, 2019;ZHANG et al, 2019a).…”