Performance and feed intake of beef heifers on rotational grazing of natural grassland receiving protein and energy supplement in cool season

Abstract

The aim of this study was to evaluate the performance and feed intake of grazing beef heifers on two grazing intervals determined by thermal sum related to leaf elongation duration during cool season on natural grasslands. A complete randomized block design experiment with two treatments and three replications was conducted from May to September 2011 in the central part of the state of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. The treatments were two thermal sums calculated at 375 and 750 degrees-days (DD) to determine the intervals between grazing periods in a rotational grazing system. Thirty six beef heifers with average age of 18 months old and (initial body weight = 220±14kg) were used, all heifers received ground corn supplement at a rate of 5g kg-1 of body weight per day, at 2p.m., throughout the experiment and had free access to mineral and protein supplementation (450g kg-1 of CP). Similar average daily gain (ADG), beef production gain (BPG) and feed intake (FI), were obtained in both treatments. Leaf elongation duration is an alternative grazing management tool for improved animal production and to increase animal stocking rate.

Supplement feed efficiency of growing beef cattle grazing native Campos grasslands during winter: a collated analysis

“…The ADG of unsupplemented animals was negatively affected by weather conditions, specifically by harsher conditions both before (autumn) and during the stocking period (winter). Kuinchtner et al (2018) point out that limitations to young cattle performance during the cool season in native grasslands may be due to low forage quality that is a consequence of lower temperatures and frosts that inhibit growth of C4 grasses. Furthermore, our results suggest that frosts actually kill the accumulated biomass of C4 species.…”

Pesquisas em forragicultura no Programa de Pós-Graduação em Zootecnia (UFSM): história e legado para ações futuras

“…A partir disso, foi possível classificar as espécies de acordo com a estratégia de captura e uso de recursos, e Quadros 2020), que identificaram o período entre 06:00 e 00:00 como representativos das 24 horas de atividades dos animais. O desempenho animal não diferiu entre as somas térmicas (KUINCHTNER et al, 2018;KUINCHTNER et al, 2021b), e mostrou que ambas as somas térmicas podem ser utilizadas para manter a viabilidade dos sistemas de produção pecuária quando combinadas com suplementação durante o inverno (período de escassez forrageira no bioma Pampa). Marin et al (2022) observaram maiores ganhos de peso por área e taxa de lotação na soma térmica 252 GD quando comparada à soma 404 GD, porém a estrutura da vegetação não variou entre os tratamentos.…”

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“…Alternatives have been studied for growing beef cattle in grazing systems as a tool to improve performance and mitigate negative effects of seasonality, such as deferred (Souza et al, 2022) and rotation grazing systems (Kuinchtner et al, 2018). Management strategies have been suggested to mitigate negative effects of seasonality in grazing beef cattle production such as deferred pasture.…”