Abstract
The objective of this study was to evaluate the economic returns of crossbred calves grazing on pastures formed by Urochloa brizantha fed crude glycerin as a supplement. Thirty-six crossbred calves with initial average weight of 301.5 kg were distributed in a completely randomized design with four treatments and nine replicates per treatment. The animals were maintained on rotational grazing production of Urochloa brizantha cv. Marandu. The tested treatments were 0.0, 3.33, 6.66 and 9.99% inclusion of crude glycerin in the total dry matter as a substitute for corn. The production of meat was not altered by the inclusion of glycerin in the diet. The inclusion of glycerin caused a reduction of up to 14.93% in the price of the concentrate. There was a significant increase in the total balance, which rose from 3.76 to 91.89 R$/ha with the inclusion of glycerin. The inclusion of crude glycerin in the supplement was capable of raising the net present value and the internal rate of return, proving to be an alternative to reduce the cost of production of supplemented pastured animals.
Highlights
Under certain situations, rearing cattle exclusively on pastures may generate unfavorable outcomes, since none of the essential nutrients are present on pasture in adequate levels to meet the animal requirements
Because no difference (P>0.05) was found in the intake of dry matter (DM) from pasture (5.2 kg) and concentrate (2.7 kg) between the treatments (Table 2), it can be stated that the inclusion of glycerin in the concentrate did not provoke any associative effect on forage intake
Crude glycerin did not affect the performance of the animals (P>0.05), which showed an average value of 649 g/day (Table 3)
Summary
Under certain situations, rearing cattle exclusively on pastures may generate unfavorable outcomes, since none of the essential nutrients are present on pasture in adequate levels to meet the animal requirements. In the case of cattle production on pasture, in some cases the use of supplements may not be economically viable, since the cost with feeding is significantly elevated in some seasons of the year due to oscillations of the prices of ingredients such as corn, which motivates the relentless search for alternative foods. It is the responsibility of nutritionists to come up with feeding strategies that reduce the costs of production. The search for alternative foods to corn and feeding alternatives that reduce the cost of production has been constant. The use of oilseeds to produce ethanol and biodiesel in Brazil has generated an excess byproduct, especially in the production of biodiesel, named crude glycerin. It is reported that for every 90 m3 of biodiesel produced through the transesterification reaction, 10 m3 of crude glycerin are generated (Gonçalves, 2006)
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