Effects of offering grass silage alone or in combination with lupin/triticale, lupin/wheat or pea/oat whole-crop silages on animal performance, meat quality and fatty acid composition of beef from cattle offered two levels of concentrate

Abstract

AbstractAn experiment was carried out to examine the effects of offering beef cattle five silage diets. These were perennial ryegrass silage (PRGS) as the sole forage, tall fescue/perennial ryegrass silage (FGS) as the sole forage, PRGS in a 50:50 ratio on a dry matter (DM) basis with lupin/triticale silage (LTS), lupin/wheat silage (LWS) and pea/oat silage (POS). Each of the five silage diets was supplemented with 4 and 7 kg of concentrates/head/day in a five silages × two concentrate intakes factorial design. A total of 90 cattle were used in the 121-day experiment. The grass silages were of medium digestibility and were well preserved. The legume/cereal silages had high ammonia N, high acetic acid, low lactic acid, low butyric acid and low digestible organic matter concentrations (542, 562 and 502 g/kg DM for LTS, LWS and POS, respectively). Silage treatment did not significantly affect liveweight gain, carcass gain, carcass characteristics, the instrumental assessment of meat quality or fatty acid composition of theM. longissimus dorsimuscle. In view of the low yields of the legume/cereal crops, it is concluded that the inclusion of spring-sown legume/cereal silages in the diets of beef cattle is unlikely to be advantageous.