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Effects of offering grass silage alone or in combination with lupin/triticale, lupin/wheat or pea/oat whole-crop silages on animal performance, meat quality and fatty acid composition of beef from cattle offered two levels of concentrate

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 January 2019

P. C. Kennedy ,
L. E. R. Dawson ,
F. O. Lively ,
R. W. J. Steen ,
A. M. Fearon ,
B. W. Moss  and
D. J. Kilpatrick
P. C. Kennedy
Affiliation:
Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute, Large Park, Hillsborough, Co Down, BT26 6DR, UK
L. E. R. Dawson
Affiliation:
Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute, Large Park, Hillsborough, Co Down, BT26 6DR, UK
F. O. Lively*
Affiliation:
Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute, Large Park, Hillsborough, Co Down, BT26 6DR, UK
R. W. J. Steen
Affiliation:
Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute, Large Park, Hillsborough, Co Down, BT26 6DR, UK
A. M. Fearon
Affiliation:
Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute, Newforge Lane, Belfast, BT9 5PX, UK
B. W. Moss
Affiliation:
Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute, Newforge Lane, Belfast, BT9 5PX, UK
D. J. Kilpatrick
Affiliation:
Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute, Newforge Lane, Belfast, BT9 5PX, UK
*
Author for correspondence: F.O. Lively, E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

An experiment was carried out to examine the effects of offering beef cattle five silage diets. These were perennial ryegrass silage (PRGS) as the sole forage, tall fescue/perennial ryegrass silage (FGS) as the sole forage, PRGS in a 50:50 ratio on a dry matter (DM) basis with lupin/triticale silage (LTS), lupin/wheat silage (LWS) and pea/oat silage (POS). Each of the five silage diets was supplemented with 4 and 7 kg of concentrates/head/day in a five silages × two concentrate intakes factorial design. A total of 90 cattle were used in the 121-day experiment. The grass silages were of medium digestibility and were well preserved. The legume/cereal silages had high ammonia N, high acetic acid, low lactic acid, low butyric acid and low digestible organic matter concentrations (542, 562 and 502 g/kg DM for LTS, LWS and POS, respectively). Silage treatment did not significantly affect liveweight gain, carcass gain, carcass characteristics, the instrumental assessment of meat quality or fatty acid composition of the M. longissimus dorsi muscle. In view of the low yields of the legume/cereal crops, it is concluded that the inclusion of spring-sown legume/cereal silages in the diets of beef cattle is unlikely to be advantageous.

Keywords

Beef cattlecereallegumesilagewholecrop
Type
Animal Research Paper
Information
The Journal of Agricultural Science , Volume 156 , Issue 8 , October 2018 , pp. 1017 - 1027
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019 

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