English

Brito Batista Perecles,Tolleson Douglas,Garcia Leal Araújo Gherman,Gonzaga Neto Severino,Gusmao De Quadros Danilo,Namorato De Souza Heraldo

doi:10.5897/ijlp2021.0762

Abstract

This trial evaluated concentrate supplementation on grazing behavior, growth performance, carcass yield and economic analysis of off-season steer production in an integrated crop-livestock system (ICL). A randomized block design with the pastures (modules) as blocks, with 4 treatments, 4 groups of animals per treatment and 3 animals per group (N=48, 395±16 kg) was used to evaluate increasing levels of concentrate supplementation (1.0, 2.0, 3.0 and 4.0 kg/animal/day) containing 17% crude protein and 76% total digestible nutrients. The steers were kept in “Santa Fé” ICL Urocloa ruziziensis pastures during the dry season. Concentrate intake was 0.98, 1.45, 1.86, and 2.02 kg/animal/day, representing 0.23, 0.34, 0.44, and 0.47% of BW. Supplementation did not affect grazing time (P = 0.66); however, linearly decreased rumination time (P = 0.025) and increased idling (P = 0.043) and trough (P = 0.034) times. Average daily gain, carcass weight, dressing percentage and beef productivity linearly increased (P < 0.01) with increasing concentrate in the diets. All the supplementation levels were profitable, but the profit margin was greater in the highest level of concentrate supplementation. Concentrate supplementation to produce off-season Nellore steers in ICL was an efficient and profitable way to enhance growth performance and carcass yield without compromising grazing activity. Key words: beef cattle, behavior, carcass, intake, performance.

Highlights

The objective was to evaluate the effects of concentrate supplementation on grazing behavior, growth performance, beef productivity, carcass yield and economic analysis of finishing steers in “Santa Fé” Integrated crop-livestock systems (ICL)
“Santa Fé” ICL was a good option to provide forage for cattle during the dry season, enabling considerable carrying capacity to reach the forage allowance of 8 kg dry matter (DM)/100 kg body weight (BW) (8%), which seems reasonable for balancing gain per animal and per area (Euclides et al, 2018)
Taking into account the herbage mass, the theoretical DM intake of 12 kg DM/day for cattle weighing 450 kg BW (NRC, 1996), and grazing efficiency of 50%, it can be inferred that carrying capacity would be 1.5 animal unit (AU)/ha

Summary

Introduction

The objective was to evaluate the effects of concentrate supplementation on grazing behavior, growth performance, beef productivity, carcass yield and economic analysis of finishing steers in “Santa Fé” ICL. Pasture measurements (herbage mass and forage allowance) were not subjected to the effect of supplementation level due to the grazing rotation, the data were analyzed by analysis of variance (ANOVA) for a completely randomized design to test paddock as a cause of variance with repeated measures in time, using PROC GLM of the Statistical Analysis System (SAS® 9.22), and considered statistically equal when the p-values were greater than 0.05 in F-test.

Results

Conclusion