Feed Intake of Young Double-Muscled Bulls Fed on Grass and Supplemented with Sugar-Beet Pulp

Abstract

Daily dry matter intake in young growing double-muscled bulls, fed indoors on grass, was estimated based on forty-four intake data from 28 animals, ageing at least five months and weighing up to 400 kg live weight. Intake was measured during five consecutive days using one of eighteen cuts of grass. Fresh meadow grass (mainly Lolium perenne) was fed ad libitum and two kg dried sugar-beet pulp was offered per animal and per day. Animal live weight averaged 278 +/- 82 kg and mean total daily dry matter intake amounted to 5.05 +/- 1.59 kg or 73.6 +/- 13.7 g per kg metabolic weight, while pulp dry matter intake amounted to 1.49 +/- 0.50 kg per day. Regression analysis showed that animal as well as feed characteristics could explain up to approximately 90% of the variation in daily dry matter intake. The supplementation resulted in an extra daily dry matter intake of 0.68 g per g pulp dry matter. Intake of double-muscled animals was considerably lower than previously reported for non-double-muscled cattle. An extra supplementation of young grazing double-muscled animals could be advised from these findings, while extra protein should also be considered.

Effect of supplementation on the performance of grazing Belgian Blue double-muscled heifers

“…This result confirms the lower intake capacity of double-muscled animals compared with normal-muscled animals, as reported previously (Fiems et al, 1997). Furthermore, it is assumed that the increased protein requirement of BBDM heifers is not met, as shown previously for BBDM bulls (Fiems et al, 2002a). Feeding 1.41 kg corn DM daily (0.5% of BW) to Simmental crossbred steers and heifers, weighing initially 272 and 240 kg, respectively, resulted in a mean average daily gain of 0.69 kg (Goetsch et al, 1991).…”

“…Data not only suggest a breed 3 diet interaction but also a breed 3 diet 3 BW interaction or a breed 3 diet 3 age interaction. We previously found a close relationship between BW and DM intake in grass-fed growing BBDM bulls (Fiems et al, 2002a) on the one hand, and between BW and daily gain of grazing animals (Fiems et al, 2002b), on the other hand. The relationship between initial BW and daily gain is confirmed by the current results.…”

“…1. The choice for a mixture of BP/SBM ratio of 80/20 (fresh weight (FW) basis; Exp.2) was based on the evaluation of the protein intake from a previous study, using BBDM bulls supplemented with 2 kg BP daily (Fiems et al, 2002a) and Exp. 1.…”

“…1 than in the study by Bohnert et al (2001), so that this parameter can hardly explain the different animal performance. On the contrary, a higher protein content may be beneficial for growth (Fiems et al, 2002a). As aforementioned, the different breeds involved can exert a diverging effect on intake and performance.…”

“…This resulted in a decreased dietary protein content (Fiems et al, 2002a), which may exert a negative effect on animal performance. Therefore, it can be expected that an extra protein supplement can be an alternative to overcome this problem.…”