The objective of this trial was to evaluate the effect of body weight (BW) of heifers on intake, apparent digestibility of nutrients, microbial protein synthesis, ruminal metabolism, and urinary excretion of nitrogenous compounds. The spot urine sampling and the total collection of urine techniques were used to estimate microbial N flow. Twenty-two heifers with different body weights (523, 453, 315, 235 and 118 kg) were used in a completely randomized design and assigned to the following treatments: BW523, BW453, BW315, […]

The objective of this trial was to evaluate partial and total tract digestibilities of diets containing Brachiaria brizantha hay plus concentrate fed to young bulls. Four Santa Gertrudis young bulls fitted with duodenal and ruminal cannulae were used in a 4 x 4 Latin square. Diets were formulated to yield daily body weight gains (BWG) of 0.5 or 1 kg/animal and potential of microbial fermentation of 9.5 or 11 g of microbial crude protein/MJ fermentable metabolizable energy. Apparent digestibility of […]

The objective of this trial was to evaluate the effect of body condition score (BCS) and different dietary net energy (NE) levels during prepartum on performance and concentration of plasma non-esterified fatty acids (NEFA) in early lactating dairy goats. Animals (four replicates per treatment) were assigned to a completely randomized design in a 2 x 3 x 2 factorial arrangement of treatments (two BCS, three levels of prepartum NE and two levels of postpartum NE). In the beginning of the […]

Twelve Holstein lactating dairy cows were blocked by days in milk and randomly assigned to three replicated 4 x 4 Latin square to evaluate the effect of different protein sources on efficiency of microbial protein synthesis, concentration of serum (NUS) and milk (MUN) urea nitrogen, and ruminal metabolism. A basal corn silage diet (60% of the total dry matter) was fed plus one of the following proteins sources (DM basis): soybean meal (SBM), cottonseed meal with 38% of crude protein […]

The objective of this experiment was to evaluate the quality and nutritive value of marandugrass silages. It was evaluated the followings treatments: T1– forage without treatment (control); T2 – 10% of pelleted citric pulp (CiP); T3 – enzymatic bacterial additive (EBA) (SIL-ALL-C4 of Alltech) applied at 5 g/L of water/t of forage; T4 – Coarse chopped forage wilted for 4 hours under the sun. The grass was harvested with 60 days of regrowth (24% DM). The intake and digestibility evaluations […]

The objective of this study was to estimate the dietary apparent digestible fraction of nonfiber carbohydrates (NFC) using the Lucas test concept. The dataset contained a total of 167 observations with 57 originated from two trials conducted with lactating cows and 110 from three experiments with growing and finishing cattle. The dataset was randomly divided in two subsets. The first subset was used to estimate the model parameters while the second for model validation. Tests for checking equality of models […]

This study was conducted to evaluate the effect of pregnancy simulation (placement of 100 lead spheres in the uterus-LEAD) and ovariectomy (OVAE) on traits of carcass and meat of heifers finished in feedlot. Animals not pregnant and with intact ovary were used as the control (CTRL). Nineteen crossbred heifers (½ Nelore x ½ Red Angus) averaging 18 months of age and 257.8 kg of body weight were used. Animals were fed a diet containing (% DM): 41% of corn silage […]

Eighteen lambs averaging initial body weight (BW) of 15 kg were allotted to six groups of three animals (one lamb per diet) and were fed diets with following forage:concentrate ratios (F:C): 1) 40F:60C; 2) 55F:45C; or 3) 70F:30C. Lambs of each group were slaughtered when the animal fed the diet with the highest concentrate level reached 25 kg of BW. Animals were slaughtered after 16 h of fasting (feed and water). After obtaining the slaughter body weight (SBW), animals were […]

This research was carried out to evaluate the nutritive value of elephant grass silages, with increasing levels of dehydrated passion fruit by-product (DPFB). Five inclusion levels were studied (0.0, 3.5, 7.0, 10.5, and 14.0%). Twenty castrated male sheep were assigned to a complete randomized design with five treatments (inclusion levels) and four replicates. The intakes of DM (DMI), CP (CPI), NDF (NDFI) and ADF (IADF) were determined, as well as the DM apparent digestibility (DMAD), CP (CPAD), NDF (NDFAD), ADF […]

The objective of this study was to develop and validate a model to estimate the EE apparently digestible fraction from different cattle diets. True digestibility coefficients and metabolic fecal contribution were the main parameters fitted to the model. The estimation method for both parameters was based on the Lucas test. The dataset used to build the model contained 48 and 60 experimental means for lactating cows and growing and finishing cattle, respectively. Data were taken from 24 experiments (12 experiments […]