This work aimed to survey management practices used by dairy farmers and to report nutritional recommendations adopted by 43 dairy cattle nutritionists in Brazil. The web-based survey consisted of 80 questions. Almost 50% of the participants had clients that produce <1000 kg of milk daily and 48.8% had clients who own fewer than 100 dairy cows. Corn was the primary source of grain (97.4%), and 43.9% of the nutritionists included from 41% to 50% concentrate in lactation diets. The mean roughage inclusion in lactation diets was 50.5% and 79% of the nutritionists reported corn silage as the primary roughage source. Average crude protein and rumen-degradable protein concentrations recommended by the nutritionists for lactation diets were 15.7% and 9%, respectively. Average Ca and P concentrations recommended for lactation diets were 0.70% and 0.41%, respectively. The major health problem reported by 83.9% of the nutritionists was mastitis. The present survey provides an overview of management practices adopted by dairy farmers and nutritional recommendations currently applied by dairy cattle nutritionists in Brazil. The most critical points identified were low milk yield, mastitis as the major health problem, lack of proper mixing and delivery of rations, and destination of male calves.
The experiment was designed to determine the effects of different doses of sodium monensin (MON) on feeding behaviour, dry matter intake (DMI) variation and selective consumption of feedlot Nellore cattle. The experiment was a randomised complete block design, replicated 12 times, in which 60 20-month-old yearling Nellore bulls (402.52 ± 33.0 kg) were fed the following different doses of MON (expressed in mg per kg, on a DM basis) in individual pens for 84 days: 0, 9, 18, 27 and 36. The adaptation program consisted of ad libitum feeding of two adaptation diets over a period of 14 days with concentrate level increasing from 68% to 84% of diet DM. Orthogonal contrasts were used to assess linear, quadratic, cubic and quartic relationships between doses of MON and the dependent variable. As the dose of MON increased, the time spent ruminating (P < 0.01), feeding efficiency of DM (P < 0.05) and feeding efficiency of neutral detergent fibre (NDF; P < 0.05) were affected linearly during the period of adaptation. For the finishing period, as the dose of MON increased, time spent eating and ruminating, and feeding efficiency of DM were affected quadratically (P < 0.05), in which animals fed 9 ppm of MON presented better feeding efficiency of DM. Thus, as animals fed 9 ppm of MON presented better feeding efficiency of DM and NDF during the adaptation and finishing periods, it should be the dose of choice for feedlot Nellore cattle.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.