Comparison of Wilted-Alfalfa Silage and Alfalfa Hay Preserved With Propionic Acid in Corn-Silage-Based Diets for Milking Cows

Abstract

Atwel, A. S. a,ur ERFLE, J. D. 1988. Comparison of wilted-alfalfa silage and alfalfa hay preserved with propionic acid in corn-silage-based diets for milking cows. Can. J. Anim. Thirty cows (9 uniparous and 2l multiparous) were fed three diets during weeks [5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16] of lactation. The dietary ingredients were adjusted weekly to reflect their oven dry matter (DM). production for this preliminary period was used as a covariate to compare the effects of dietary treatments. The number of lactations. the milk oroduced during weeks 6-9 of the previous lactation or during the preliminary period for uniparous cows were used to stratiry the cows into 10 groups of three cows each. One cow from each group was then assigned at random to one of the three experimental diets. A 2-wk interval (weeks 5-6 of lactation) was used as the adjustment period; then milk production and feed intake were recorded for a l0-wk (weeks 7-16 of lactation) experimental period. The SCM data were also anall zed by co',ariance analysis using the individual cow data from preliminary period (weeks 3-4 of lactation) as a covariate (Erfle et al. 1983) In this text, statements of differences or significant differences refer to P < 0.05 unless otherwise stated.