Effect of corn residue harvest method with ruminally undegradable protein supplementation on performance of growing calves and fiber digestibility 1

Two experiments evaluated the effects of corn residue harvest method on animal performance and diet digestibility. Experiment 1 was designed as a 2 ... 2 + 1 factorial arrangement of treatments using 60 individually fed crossbred steers (280 kg [SD 32] initial BW; n = 12). Factors were the corn resi...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of animal science 2017-12, Vol.95 (12), p.5290-5300
Main Authors: King, T M, Bondurant, R G, Jolly-Breithaupt, M L, Gramkow, J L, Klopfenstein, T J, MacDonald, J C
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Calves
Cattle
Corn
Diet
Dietary supplements
Digestibility
Proteins
Residues
Zea mays
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Summary:Two experiments evaluated the effects of corn residue harvest method on animal performance and diet digestibility. Experiment 1 was designed as a 2 ... 2 + 1 factorial arrangement of treatments using 60 individually fed crossbred steers (280 kg [SD 32] initial BW; n = 12). Factors were the corn residue harvest method (high-stem and conventional) and supplemental RUP at 2 concentrations (0 and 3.3% diet DM). A third harvest method (low-stem) was also evaluated, but only in diets containing supplemental RUP at 3.3% diet DM because of limitations in the amount of available low-stem residue. Therefore, the 3 harvest methods were compared only in diets containing supplemental RUP. In Exp. 2, 9 crossbred wethers were blocked by BW (42.4 kg [SD 7] initial BW) and randomly assigned to diets containing corn residue harvested 1 of 3 ways (low-stem, high-stem, and conventional). In Exp. 1, steers fed the lowstem residue diet had greater ADG compared with the steers fed conventionally harvested corn residue (P = 0.03; 0.78 vs. 0.63 kg), whereas steers fed highstem residue were intermediate (P > 0.17; 0.69 kg), not differing from either conventional or low-stem residues. Results from in vitro OM digestibility suggest that low-stem residue had the greatest (P < 0.01) amount of digestible OM compared with the other 2 residue harvest methods, which did not differ (P = 0.32; 55.0, 47.8, and 47.1% for low-stem, high-stem, and conventional residues, respectively). There were no differences in RUP content (40% of CP) and RUP digestibility (60%) among the 3 residues (P ≥ 0.35). No interactions were observed between harvest method and the addition of RUP (P ≥ 0.12). The addition of RUP tended to result in improved ADG (0.66 ± 0.07 vs. 0.58 ± 0.07 for supplemental RUP and no RUP, respectively; P = 0.08) and G:F (0.116 ± 0.006 vs. 0.095 ± 0.020 for supplemental RUP and no RUP, respectively; P = 0.02) compared with similar diets without the additional RUP. In Exp. 2, low-stem residue had greater DM and OM digestibility and DE (P < 0.01) than high-stem and conventional residues, which did not differ (P ≥ 0.63). Low-stem residue also had the greatest NDF digestibility (NDFD; P < 0.01), whereas high-stem residue had greater NDFD than conventional residue (P < 0.01). Digestible energy was greatest for low-stem residue (P < 0.05) and did not differ between high-stem and conventional residues (P = 0.50). Reducing the proportion of stem in the bale through changes in the harvest method i
ISSN:0021-8812
1525-3163
DOI:10.2527/jas2017.1926