Inclusion of barley fibre and barley protein in a total mixed ration for growing dairy bulls

Abstract

A 2)2 factorial design with 32 dairy bulls was used to study the effects of partial replacement of a starchy concentrate with a fibrous concentrate and replacement of rapeseed meal with barley protein as protein supplement on performance of bulls with ad libitum access to a total mixed ration feeding. The two energy supplements were flattened barley (B) and a mixture (1:1 on dry matter (DM) basis) of flattened barley and barley fibre (BF). These were fed with either rapeseed meal or barley protein so that the crude protein content of rations was 162 g kg (1 DM. Replacing half of the barley grain with barley fibre increased (P B0.01) the average DM intake (9.3 kg d (1 versus 9.9 kg d (1 ), but had no effect on the average live weight gain (1.27 kg d (1 ). There seemed to be only a minor difference between rapeseed meal and barley protein as protein supplements on animal performance.

The effect of cereal type (barley versus oats) and rapeseed meal supplementation on the performance of growing and finishing dairy bulls offered grass silage-based diets

“…In accordance with many earlier trials (e.g. Huhtanen et al, 1989;Huuskonen et al, 2008b), carcass quality was not affected by the different concentrate supplement in the present study.…”

“…Replacing barley with oats in the diet had a negative effect on the OM digestibility similar to that observed by Huhtanen (1992) and Huuskonen et al (2007aHuuskonen et al ( , 2008b in growing bulls when they replaced barley grain by barley fibre (a fibrous by-product of integrated starch-ethanol production). Like oats, also barley fibre contains much more NDF and less starch than barley grain (Huuskonen et al, 2007a(Huuskonen et al, , 2008b. The reduction in NDF digestibility, when replacing barley grain with oats, was partly a consequence of decreasing proportion of silage's NDF in the total NDF intake.…”

“…However, in the present study, the bulls did not compensate the lower energy content of oats by increasing silage intake. In our earlier studies with growing dairy bulls, partial (50%) replacement of barley grain by barley fibre did not affect the LWG of the bulls on TMR feeding, because replacing barley grain with barley fibre increased feed intake (Huuskonen et al, 2007a(Huuskonen et al, , 2008b. In these earlier experiments we used TMR feeding and the average concentrate proportions were higher (540 g/kg DM, Huuskonen et al, 2007a and570 g/kg DM, Huuskonen et al, 2008b) than in the present study (400 g/kg).…”

Performance and meat quality of Nordic Red and Aberdeen Angus bulls offered faba bean or field pea based whole crop legume-cereal silages

“…NDF is expressed without containing residual ash. Ether extract was determined according to Huuskonen (2013), iNDF according to Huuskonen et al (2008) and starch as described by Huuskonen et al (2014a). The silages were analysed for the fatty acids methyl esters as described by Shingfield et al (2003) and for D-value as described by Huhtanen et al (2006).…”

Effects of concentrate level and rapeseed meal supplementation on performance, carcass characteristics, meat quality and valuable cuts of Hereford and Charolais bulls offered grass silage-barley-based rations

“…Concentrate sub-samples were collected weekly, pooled over periods of eight weeks and analysed for DM, ash, CP, ether extracts, NDF, iNDF and starch. The analyses were performed as described by Huuskonen et al (2008a).…”