TITLE:
Milk Yield and Composition and Pasture Ruminal Digestion in Grazing Dairy Cows Receiving Three Levels of Energy Concentrate Supplementation
AUTHORS:
Eloy Eduardo Salado, Gustavo Bretschneider, Alejandra Cuatrin, Adriana María Descalzo, Gerardo Antonio Gagliostro
KEYWORDS:
Grazing Dairy Cows, Milk Yield, Concentrate Supplementation, Rumen Digestion
JOURNAL NAME:
Agricultural Sciences,
Vol.8 No.10,
October
25,
2017
ABSTRACT:
The objective of the experiment was to determine the effect of feeding three
levels (T3.5, T7.0 and T10.5) of energy concentrate (3.5, 7.0 and 10.5 kg cow-1 day-1) on total dry matter (DM) and energy intakes, milk yield and composition,
nutritional value of milk and rumen pasture neutral detergent fiber
(NDF) digestion in grazing dairy cows. Twenty-one multiparous Holstein
cows in early lactation (70.2 ± 13 days postpartum) producing 37.1 (±4.7) kg
of milk were assigned to a 3 treatments (7 cows/treatment) × 3 periods Latin
square design. Parameters of ruminal environment and pasture NDF degradation
were obtained using 3 additional cows of the same breed fitted with rumen
cannulae. On a wet basis, concentrate was composed by corn grain
(68%), soybean meal (22%), wheat bran (8%) and a vitamin-mineral nucleus
with monensin. Pasture (Medicago sativa, sp) was used in a rotational grazing
system with an herbage allowance of 30 kg DM cow-1 d-1. Yield (kg cow-1 d-1)
of fat corrected milk (4% FCM) resulted higher (p p p p p p p p