Browsing by Subject "kevätruisvehnä"

Barley is considered as the best small grain cereal for whole crop silage due to its good di-gestibility. An interesting alternative for barley is triticale which has had significantly higher yield in prior studies compared to barley. This study was conducted to determine the effects of triticale and barley whole crop silages on performance and carcass traits of growing beef bulls compared to grass silage-based diet. Five different total mixed rations (TMR) were compared. Grass silage based TMR was the control. Grass silage was replaced with barley or triticale whole crop silage in four other TMRs on two different levels. Either 50% or 100% of the grass silage dry matter (DM) was replaced. Intake of TMRs and live weight gain of bulls were monitored through-out the experiment and the feeds were analysed in a laboratory at the end of the experiment. The fermentation quality of the silages was good. Dry matter concentration of whole crop si-lages were higher and crude protein as well as neutral detergent fibre concentrations were lower than in grass silage. Starch concentration (308 g/kg DM) of barley silage was higher than in triticale (172 g/kg DM). D-value (685 g/kg DM) and metabolizable energy content of grass silage was higher than those of the whole crop silages. Furthermore, in barley whole crop silage D-value (659 g/kg DM) was higher than in the triticale whole crop silage (622 g/kg DM). When replacing grass with triticale, DM as well as starch intakes were increased, and crude protein intake decreased linearly. The feeding had no effect on animals’ growth rate, but car-cass gain tended to decrease as the proportion of triticale in the diet increased. Feed conver-sion (kg DM/ kg live or carcass weight gain) was less efficient and crude protein conversion improved linearly when grass silage was replaced with triticale. Also, dressing proportion de-creased linearly when replacing grass with triticale silage. When grass silage was replaced with barley silage the DM intake, ME, metabolizable protein and starch intake as well as live weight gain increased, and crude protein intake decreased linearly. Dry matter and crude pro-tein conversion ratios and fat score changed curvilinearly as proportion of barley silage in-creased. Dry matter intake of the mixture of grass and barley silages per kilogram of growth was higher compared to other diets. Barley silage diet had better crude protein utilization than other diets. Fat scores were lower with grass silage compared to other silages. As triticale replaced grass, intake increased, but that did not affect the rate of live weight gain. Dressing proportion decreased, dry matter conversion rate declined, and crude protein con-version rate improved. The results can mainly be explained by lower digestibility and higher iNDF-concentration of triticale silage compared to grass silage. The experiment showed that grass silage can be replaced with barley whole crop silage with-out negative effects on production, and growth rate was even improved with barley silage. This was mainly due to higher daily ME intake. Dry matter intake per kg carcass weight gain was higher for bulls fed with whole crop silages. That can increase feed costs depending on the production costs of the roughage.