ANFS417 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Beef Cattle, Rumen, Silage

• School: University of Delaware
• Department: Animal and Food Sciences
• Course: ANFS417
• Professor: Lesa Griffiths

Document Summary

Beef cattle nutrition: managing ruminants on pasture, sustainable production, many recommendations are based on research with harvested forages, primary reason for poor performance on pasture is probably inadequate availability of quality forage, pasture management issue. Intake: estimates of dmi are probably underestimated, too low for productive animals. Intent of good grazing management is to keep plants vegetative: most pastures in vegetative state are 12-25% cp, so protein may be wasted. Intake decreases rapidly as dm availability drops below 1200 lbs: beef cattle maintain better intake lvls as pasture declines than to sheep, can clean-up pasture when they have lowest nutrition requirements, planning a grazing system. Isolate: clean, no crowding, fresh air, clean water, vet care, deworm, vaccinate, implant, antibiotic program, vit a, gradual diet adjustment, 21 d, hay corn silage grain. Effects of sickness on performance, carcass characteristics and net return. Total returns to preconditioning for a group of 30.