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- Title
Ingestive behavior of young grazing Nellore bulls supplemented with sources of nonprotein nitrogen during the dry season at two different times.
- Authors
Mota, V. A. C.; Fernandes, R. M.; Nascimento, C. F.; Issa, H. A. S.; Holder, V. B.; Pettigrew, J. E.; Resende, F. D.; Siqueira, G. R.
- Abstract
Cattle in a hot climate have 2 peak grazing times, early morning and late afternoon, so feeding a supplement in early morning may interfere with pasture consumption. A controlled-release urea may synchronize ruminal ammonia and energy availability compared with urea. The objective of this study was to evaluate the ingestive behavior of grazing cattle in the dry season at a low latitude, receiving supplements containing urea or Optigen (a controlled-release urea) at 0700 or 1300 h. One hundred twenty young Nellore bulls with BW of 228 ± 39 kg and 12 mo old were used, 5 in each of 20 paddocks of 3 ha each. The pasture was Brachiaria brizantha cv. Marandu. The duration was 98 d, 14 d of adaptation and 3 periods of 28 d. The grazing time and the time at the supplement trough during daytime (0600 to 1750 h), nighttime (1800 to 0550 h), and total were evaluated by trained people at 10-min intervals on 1 d in each period. The 4 treatments were a factorial design of 2 feeding times × 2 urea sources, applied in a randomized complete block design. Statistical analysis was by the MIXED procedure of SAS, version 9.2 (SAS, 2008), considering block as a random variable. There was no influence of supplementation time, urea sources, or their interaction on the grazing time or the trough time during daytime, nighttime or total (P > 0.10). The grazing time was reduced by 92 min (P < 0.01) in the third period compared with the first 2 and the trough time was lower in the first period (33 min; P = 0.03) than in the second (50 min) and the third (65 min), but there were no interactions of period with treatment. These changes are presumably a response to increasing pasture growth as the seasonal rains began. In conclusion, under the conditions of this study, the time of supplementation and the urea sources do not alter the ingestive behavior of young bulls.
- Subjects
BULLS; GRAZING; NITROGEN in animal nutrition; ANIMAL behavior
- Publication
Journal of Animal Science, 2017, Vol 95, p148
- ISSN
0021-8812
- Publication type
Abstract
- DOI
10.2527/asasann.2017.299