Abstract

This experiment evaluated the effect of chopping whole-crop barley silage on intake, diet selection and live-weight gain in young dairy steers. Whole-crop barley harvested at the dough stage of maturity and preserved as round bale silage was fed ad libitum in its long form or precision-chopped to 63 pen-housed dairy steers (average weight 173, s.d. 39 kg). In addition, each animal received 0.6 kg of soybean meal, 0.4 kg of barley grain and 0.08 kg of mineral feed daily. Chopping increased dry matter intake of whole-crop barley silage by 23% and live-weight gain by 22%. Higher concentrations of starch in the orts from steers when fed unchopped silage reflected sorting against grain, probably caused by long awns in the unchopped silage, which were not present in the chopped silage. No sorting against grain occurred in the chopped silage. Chopping increased intake of whole-crop barley silage and live-weight gain of young dairy steers, probably due to negative effects of long awns in the unchopped whole-crop barley silage on intake. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords

Whole-crop barley silage; Chopping; Diet selection

Published in

Livestock Science
2011, Volume: 141, number: 1, pages: 80-84
Publisher: ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV

SLU Authors

• Rustas, Bengt-Ove

  • Department of Applied Animal Science and Welfare, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

• Nadeau, Elisabet

  • Department of Applied Animal Science and Welfare, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

UKÄ Subject classification

Animal and Dairy Science
Veterinary Science


Publication identifier

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.livsci.2011.04.013

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/46305