Whole crop barley silage in winter fattering hereford steers

Abstract

During the winter season of 1995 and over a period of 64 days, 24 Hereford steers of 11 to 12 months of age and 280 kg. liveweight were fattened in order to evaluate animal response to feeding of whole barley silage in comparison to maize silage. Treatments were TI: maize silage; T2: whole barley silage 1 at milky state and T3: whole barley silage 2, at starchy state. The silages were offered ad libitumand daily supplemented with concentrates equivalent to 0,9% of the animal liveweight on a dry matter basis. The concentrates were formulated with oats and white lupin grains in order to obtain isoproteic rations with 13% P.C. A total dry matter intake was assumed to be equivalent to 2,5% of the live weight of the animals. The experimental design considered completely randomnized blocks, with 8 duplicates. Daily liveweight gains were 1,223a; 1,299a and 1,252a kg/day (P>0.05) for treatments 1,2, and 3 respectively. Daily dry matter intakes were 6,9b; 7,5a and 7,2ab kg/animal (P<0.05); feed conversion efficiency was was 5,6a; 5,8a and 5,7a kg of dry matter/kg of liveweight gain (P0.05), for the same treatmentsm respectively. Carcass quality was not statistically different (P>0.05). It was concluded that whole barley silage can replace maize silage on rations for fattening steers and that the effect was similar for both phenological stages of silage studied.