Dry distillers grain with high fiber solubles replacing corn grain in confined sheep diets

Abstract

In Brazil, the meat production market has intensified, with more and more improvements being sought every day in the production system to maintain greater economic viability. Therefore, initially, there is greater attention to animal nutrition, using different food sources to ensure good animal performance. As a result, the search for alternative foods has been highlighted due to the good dietary energy components for ruminants. The objective was to evaluate inclusion levels of dried distillers grain with high fiber solubles (DDGS FS OURO®) in the diet of confined sheep regarding nutrient consumption characteristics. Eight animals of the Santa Inês breed were used, males, castrated, with an initial body weight of 30 kg, aged 7 months. The animals were distributed in a double 4x4 Latin square design, with 4 experimental periods of 21 days each, with 16 days of adaptation and 5 days for sample collection. The treatments consisted of the inclusion of 20, 40, 60 and 80% of DDGS high fiber in dry matter, in high concentrate diets. The inclusion of DDGS did not influence the consumption of DM (kg/day), DM (% BW), MO (kg/day) and CP (kg/day), with average values of 1.42; 3.55; 1.23 and 0.264, respectively. Regarding the consumption of NDF and iNDF, a linear increase can be noted with the inclusion of DDGS. The inclusion of dry distillers grain with high-fiber solubles favored a greater consumption of neutral detergent fiber without changing the consumption of dry matter, which for a high-concentrate diet would be interesting to reduce the risk of acidosis.