Elephant grass ensiled with wheat bran compared with corn silage in diets for lactating goats

Abstract

The objective of this study was to evaluate the use of wheat bran as an additive in elephant-grass silage on intake and digestibility of the nutrients, ingestive behavior, and yield and chemical composition of milk. Eight goats with 45 days of lactation were distributed in a (4 × 4) Latin square design.The treatments consisted of corn silage (CS), elephant-grass silage without wheat bran (EGS), elephant-grass silage with 10% wheat bran (EGS+10%WB), and elephant-grass silage with 20% wheat bran (EGS+20% WB). There was no difference in dry matter (DM) intake between diets EGS and CS in g d−1. However, the animals fed EGS+10%WB had lower DM and organic matter (OM) intakes than the animals fed CS in g kg−1 d−1 of body weight. There were lower non-fiber carbohydrate and metabolize energy intakes by animals fed diets based on elephant-grass silages than those fed CS. The EGS+20%WB diet provided lower digestibility coefficients of DM, OM, crude protein, ether extract, neutral detergent fiber (NDF) and digestible nutrients of the diet than the diet with CS. The NDF digestibility coefficient with diet EGS was greater than that obtained with diet CS. The diets with corn and elephant-grass silages provided similar milk yield levels. However, the animals fed diets based on EGS+20% WB produced less total-solids-corrected milk than the animals fed CS. No difference was found in the milk physicochemical properties and ingestive behavior of goats in this study. Corn silage can be replaced by elephant-grass silage harvested at 50 days of regrowth and elephant-grass silage with 10% wheat bran without influencing goat performance, behavioral variables, physiological variables, milk yield or the milk physicochemical properties.