Effects of different restricted feeding strategies on performance of growing and finishing dairy bulls offered grass silage and barley based diets
Keywords:
beef production, ompensatory growth, feed efficiencyAbstract
The objective of this study was to determine the effects of restricted feeding strategies on performance of growing and finishing dairy bulls. The feeding experiment comprised in total 32 Finnish Ayrshire bulls with an initial mean live weight (LW) of 122 kg and age of 114 days. Feeding treatments were silage ad libitum and daily barley allowance of 93 g kg-1 LW0.60 (A); restricted feeding (R) at 0.80 × A; increasing feeding (I) similar to R until LW of 430 kg and thereafter similar to A; and decreasing feeding (D) similar to A until LW of 430 kg and thereafter similar to R. Restricted feeding strategies decreased daily dry matter intake and LW gain and increased the time to reach the target carcass weight (300 kg). Bulls on I exhibited compensatory growth. There were no significant differences in feed efficiency between the treatments. The present experiment indicates that silage intake ad libitum and supplemented with concentrate resulted in most effective beef production.
Downloads
How to Cite
Copyright (c) 2017 Agricultural and Food Science
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Accepted 2017-06-08
Published 2017-06-30