What Type of Fiactillies Is Ment to Handle Beef Cattle

Feeding Silage to Beef Cattle

18 September 2009

How can the utilise of silage in beef cattle diets event liveweight gain and meat production? This article looks at how silage tin be used in grazing enterprises to improve production per head and permit for an increase in stocking rates.

Before deciding how silage will be integrated into their production system, producers need to conspicuously define their production and management goals.

Table 1: Summary of the uses for silage in beefiness cattle diets
Class of Cattle	Feeding objectives	Comments
Finishing heifers and steers	Meeting the various market specifications for liveweight, finish (fat comprehend) and age, on fourth dimension.	Silage-based diets can exist used to finish cattle of various classes, including weaners, milk-fed vealers, yearlings and older cattle. Total feeding: Used in large feedlots or smaller opportunity feedlots on-subcontract. Proportion of silage in the diet can vary from 20 to 100% of DM. Loftier silage quality is essential to sustain high growth rates where silage makes up a major proportion of the nutrition. Supplementary feeding: The quantity of silage fed will depend on the quantity and quality of pasture available. Silage quality must be high to ensure a good animal response. Check the protein status of the diet to determine whether protein supplementation is required.
Breeding herd	Various objectives include: • achieving satisfactory body condition at calving; • maintaining milk production and dogie growth; • ensuring adequate nutrition to maintain fertility and a target calving interval of 12 months; and • reducing the risk of grass tetany.	Silage is usually used equally a supplement to pasture. The quantity required will depend on the quantity and quality of pasture available. Silage quality has to be high to ensure a practiced animate being response. Check the poly peptide status of the nutrition to determine whether protein supplementation is required. Supplementation of cows grazing immature lush pasture with high-quality silage can reduce the incidence of grass tetany.
Weaners and feeder cattle	Maintain growth rate of young cattle to ensure they attain a satisfactory weight-for-age by the start of the finishing menstruation.	Silage can be fed to calves as immature as three months, just some supplementary concentrates are required. The quantity of silage fed will depend on the quantity and quality of pasture available, and the target growth charge per unit. Silage quality must exist high to ensure a good animal response. Check the poly peptide status of the diet to make up one's mind whether protein supplementation is required. There are management benefits from feeding young cattle. Animals oft become quieter and easier to handle, and accommodate more than speedily to a feedlot environment.
Replacement heifers	Ensure fertility to permit early joining and adequate growth rate to offset calving.	The quantity of silage fed will depend on the quantity and quality of pasture available, and the target growth rate.
Cull cows	Improve weight, body condition and market place value of cull cows.	Brusque-term feeding with silage can be profitable, especially in poor flavour, when it is difficult to end cows.
All classes	Drought feeding for survival or/ and product	Silage can provide a long-term provender reserve for drought, bushfires or floods. Targeting loftier quality for drought feeding reduces feeding costs. A high-quality silage as well provides the option to finish cattle cost effectively during a drought.

Types of silage

Pasture silage: by targeting high-quality silage, with a ME content of at least x MJ/kg DM, liveweight gains of 0.85-ane.14 kg/24-hour interval can exist achieved, or 104-123 kg/t silage DM, on silages produced from a range of pastures or crops.
Whole crop cereal silages: Research has shown that barley silage can support like cattle product to maize silage. Sowing legumes, such as field peas or vetch, with cereal crops is becoming increasingly popular equally a way to boost silage protein levels when wintertime cereals are grown specifically for silage product.
Summertime forage crops: Adept quality silage can be produced from maize and sorghums, maize has the highest quality. The potential for high ME content with maize silage enables it to support high levels of beef production. Maize can produce a ME content of eleven MJ/kg DM tin permit liveweight gains of up to one.03 kg per day. It is widely used as the forage component of feedlot diets and or as the major component of finishing rations or as a grazing supplement.

Factors affecting beefiness production from silage

Silage digestibility or ME content

Figure 1 shows that improved digestibility (ME content) is an important factor influencing liveweight gain per tonne of silage produced.

Figure 1: The event of silage digestibility on beef cattle product from silages - a summary of xl feeding experiments with well-preserved silages.

Growth stage at harvest is a item factor which will also influence silage digestibility and ME. Previous enquiry has shown that delaying the time of cutting has resulted in reduced digestibility and a articulate indication of lower liveweight gain. This suggests that relatively high levels of additional supplements/ grain may have to exist fed if fodder is cut tardily.

When determining the optimum growth phase to harvest pasture or crop for silage accept into consideration the following:

Yield of fodder harvested for silage
Potential silage digestibility or ME content
Expected cattle prices (cut afterwards may mean higher beefiness production per hectare merely if daily liveweight proceeds is lower, there may be a toll penalty to consider)
Regrowth yield - a lower silage yield from an early cut may be compensated for by college regrowth yield
Grain feeding

The furnishings of late cutting on silage digestibility and liveweight gain can be seen in Effigy 2.

Figure two: Effects of feeding a barley-based concentrate on beef production per head (A) and per hectare (B) from perennial ryegrass silages cut with a flail harvester at different intervals over the growing season.

Silage fermentation quality

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"Silage fermentation quality - A qualitative term describing the extent to which the silage has been preserved by the desired lactic acid fermentation. Where this has been accomplished, lactic acid is the ascendant fermentation product and there has been minimal breakdown/degradation of protein."

Poorly preserved silages have poor fermentation quality; they are unpalatable to stock and intake volition be reduced. These silages are also likely to have suffered all-encompassing degradation of protein, resulting in poor utilisation of the silage nitrogen by animals. With these silages, fauna production volition be lower than might be expected from a silage of like ME content, merely with proficient fermentation quality.

Research has shown that hateful liveweight gain increased from 0.27 to 0.50 kg/twenty-four hour period when silage fermentation quality was improved by either using a silage additive or by wilting. Pregnant improvements in intake, digestibility and liveweight gain were likewise noted when fermentation was improved using an formic acid additive.

When ensiling pastures of crops that are at take a chance of poor fermentation producers can use either wilting of silage additives to improve preservation.

Wilting and silage DM content

Wilting is an important management tool that can reduce silage effluent losses and meliorate silage intake. Wilting increases silage DM content thus increasing silage intake directly or indirectly.

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"Wilting - The procedure where moisture evaporates from the mown forage to increase DM content to the desired level for harvesting."

Rapid wilting is proven to reduce losses during the wilting process and produce a college quality silage. Wilting to a rate beyond 35-40 per cent has shown little increases in intake and is likely to increment field losses.

Where silage quality is likely to be poor without wilting, the response of wilting to intake and liveweight proceeds is greater, if silage would have been well preserved with a good fermentation quality without wilting, little effect would be seen.

Feeding grain and concentrates can make the furnishings of silage quality on intake and cattle production, generally reducing the response to wilting. A higher proportion of concentrates is needed to achieve satisfactory animal production on poorly preserved silages, increasing costs.

Silage additives

Additives have a number of potential roles in beefiness production:

Ameliorate the presentation of 'at risk', low DM content forages, where there is a take chances of poor fermentation due to their depression water soluble carbohydrates(WSC) content or high buffering chapters and where rapid and effective wilting is not possible because of weather conditions
Even where expert preservation is expected, the application of silage inoculants may all the same give worthwhile improvements in intake, liveweight gain and feed conversion efficiency in beef cattle
Improve the aerobic stability (susceptibility to heating) of silage during feeding

Inoculents - There is growing prove that inoculants (and formic acid) can improve animal production, even greater than when untreated silage is well preserved. This is likely due to the free-amino acrid content of the additive-treated silage which was lower than that of the untreated silage, indicating reduced protein degradation.

Aerobic spoilage inhibitors - anaerobic spoilage is the loss of DM which occurs during prolonged exposure to air during feedout and besides during storage if silage is inadequately sealed. This is common in warmers climates such equally Australia. This tin be reduced by calculation a aerobic spoilage inhibitor additive.

Grain - When added to low DM forage at ensiling, grain tin reduce effluent losses and may improve silage fermentation quality. It can also ameliorate liveweight gains.

Chop length

Reducing chop length tin can increase silage intake either directly, by reducing the fourth dimension required by an animal to consume and ruminate each kg of silage, or indirectly, by improving silage fermentation quality, peculiarly with depression DM silages. Research shows that shorter and medium chop lengths supported higher relative intakes. Shorter chopping as well allows more constructive utilisation of storage and space and improved efficiency in the treatment and transportation of forage/ silages.

Feedout system

An efficient silage feedout organization ensures cattle are not restricted to accessing silage and minimises waste product. The best method with regard to accessibility is where short-cropped silage is fed loose in a feed trough and in that location is little or no competition for feeding space. The silage harvesting organisation oftentimes influences the type of feedout system.

Footling research has been carried out looking at the effects of feedout systems on eating behaviour, intake and liveweight gain. However it is known that an easy feeding organization allows loftier intake and liveweight gain to successfully be achieved.

Feeding silage and grain diets

Although high-quality silages lone can be used to finish cattle, they are frequently fed with grain. A decision on the proportion of concentrates or grain to be used in the diet will depend on:

target growth rates required (and the ME content of the diet required to achieve it);
the quality of silage available;
the relative costs of silage and grain;
the quantity of silage available;
the availability of equipment and feeding facilities to handle high silage/ depression grain diets; and
whether the length of the finishing menses ('days on feed') is an important consideration.

The higher the quality of silage, the lower the quantity of grain will be required.

Silage as a supplement to pasture

Pasture silage
Good liveweight gain responses have been observed where high-quality silage has been used to supplement poor-quality pasture. A study in Australia showed that liveweight proceeds increased by 0.8kg per day for each kg of silage DM consumed, when finishing steers. Silage supplements tin can not only increment animal production per caput, but can also reduce pasture intake, allowing an increase in stocking rates. A study showed that silage feeding reduced pasture consumptions by approximately one.1kg per kg of silage intake. The balance between stocking rate and area set aside for silage production is an of import consideration in beef grazing systems.

Maize silage
When fed with urea and minerals, maize silage tin support up to 1 kg a twenty-four hour period or college liveweight gains. It tin can as well sustain high liveweight gains when fed in combination with pasture. Again when fed as a supplement, the liveweight gain achieved will depend on the quality and quantity of silage and the availability of pasture. Supplements of maize silage can mean a significant increase in stocking rates, whilst maintaining a similar liveweight gain per head. A study in Australia showed that on irrigated pastures, providing a maize supplement of 2.four kg DM/ head/ twenty-four hour period allowed a doubling of the stocking charge per unit and increased the liveweight gain from 1.4 to two.seven kg/ hectare/ day.

Beef producers need to not just consider product per hectare but besides product per head when finishing animals to market specifications.

Protein supplements when feeding low-protein silages
When feeding maize, sorghum and whole crop cereal silages it is important to consider the risk of inadequate levels of protein in the nutrition. If they make up more than 30 per cent of the nutrition and the protein levels autumn below seven percentage DM then a protein supplement will likely be required.

The level and type of protein supplement volition depend on the age of the brute, and the contents of the various dietary components. In a UK study it was institute that the crude protein content of the maize silage was considerably higher (x.7 per cent of DM) than seen in typical Australian maize silages (vi.5 per cent of DM). This higher content was sufficient for a liveweight gain in steers merely younger cattle required supplementary protein. This tin often be supplied as poly peptide nitrogen through lucerne hay or less effectively, urea. Research shows that supplementary nitrogen received as protein nitrogen achieves higher liveweight gains than non poly peptide nitrogen such as urea.

Mineral supplementation when feeding silage
If silage is a major proportion of the diet and mineral levels are depression, producers need to appraise the mineral status of the diet and determine whether a mineral supplement is required.

Mineral content can be influenced by soil type and fertiliser application. Strategic use of fertiliser may amend the mineral condition of the forage so that purchasing mineral supplements may not exist necessary.

Silage equally a drought (or long-term) reserve

Silage can be a drought strategy on some beef backdrop. Studies accept shown that information technology is an effective strategy when grain and roughage prices are high. When silage is merely used as a drought reserve economies of scale are more difficult to achieve as overhead costs tin can be high when spread over a relatively small tonnage of silage.

Silage costs volition be lower where information technology is used equally part of the ongoing production feeding strategy and where it is made and fed in well-nigh years. The drought reserve tin can be intergrated into the normal silage production with larger quantities reserved in expert years.

Although many will argue that the quality of any nutrient in a drought is unimportant as whatsoever feed is valuable. loftier quality silage will allow for full production feeding, providing greater management flexibility in a drought. Silage kept equally long-term drought provender reserve must be well preserved.

Silage feeding and meat quality

Diet can influence the fat deposition in a carcase which reflects the energy content of the diet. Studies have shown that the fatty content of the carcase increases with the ME content of the diet. Observations from a number of studies investigating the effect of silage quality of carcase traits and meat quality said the following:

With mixed silage/ grain diets, carcase fat colour, meat colour and marbling in yearling steers (mean carcase weights 210-220 kg) were non influenced by proportion of silage in the diet.
Where maize silage has been used as a supplement to pasture, fatty colour, meant color and marbling were not influenced by maize silage supplements (mean carcase weights 213-263 kg).
No gustation panel tests take been conducted to appraise the eating quality of meat produced from silage fed animals. However, measurements of the physical backdrop of the meat from animals in the experiments showed no treatment differences. In improver, overseas studies have shown acceptable eating quality for meat from animals finished on silage-based diets.
Studies in Australia (mean carcase weight 241-252 kg) saw that where silage and grain were compared as supplements to pasture, showed in that location were no effects on fat colour, meat color or marbling.
If animals are maintained on a poor-quality diet prior to slaughter, muscle glycogen resource can be low, and the risk of dark-coloured meat is increased. This applies to any low-quality diet, including low-quality silage.

September 2009

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