Nutrient digestibility, fecal output and eating behavior for different cattle background feeding strategies

Abstract

To examine the effects of limit feeding a high grain barley-based diet to growing cattle on nutrient digestibility, fecal DM out put and eating behavior, sixteen crossbred steers (326 ± 42.1 kg) housed in individual indoor pens were fed one of two feeding regimes in a randomized complete block design. Dietary treatments included a high-grain diet containing 1.94 Mcal NEm and 1.27 Mcal NEg kg-1 of DM and limit-fed to achieve similar NE intake to an ad libitum-fed high-forage diet containing 1.57 Mcal NEm and 0.97 Mcal NEg kg-1 DM. Chromic oxide was used to determine nutrient digestibility and fecal output. The limit-fed high-grain diet reduced (P < 0.05) fecal DM output (1.1 vs. 1.6 kg DM d-1) and improved (P < 0.05) apparent DM digestibility (82.8 vs. 79.4%) relative to the ad libitum-fed high-forage diet. Crude protein digestibility was similar (P > 0.05) across treatments; however, fiber digestibility was poorer (P < 0.05) for the limit-fed high-grain than the ad libitum-fed high-forage diet. The high-grain limit-fed cattle spent less (P < 0.05) time eating and ruminating than the ad libitum-fed high-forage cattle. These results indicate that limit feeding a high-grain barley-based diet to backgrounding cattle can improve feed efficiency and nutrient digestibility and reduce fecal DM output while targeting the same gain as an ad libitum-fed high forage backgrounding diet. Key words: Cattle, limit feeding, nutrient digestibility, fecal output