Crimping preferable to urea treatment in terms of carcass gain
Take Home Message:
- Feeding urea treated wheat to finishing steers compared to crimping or rolling will increase forage intake but reduce food conversion and carcass gain
- Increasing silage quality from approx. 10.7 to 11.7 MJ/kg DM can save approx. 3kg/head/day of feed wheat.
Treating grain with urea decreases beef carcass gain due to increased grain egestion in the faeces and, consequently, a reduction in the ME concentration of the diet.
Just one of the conclusions of a study that set out to examine the effects of grain treatment post harvest, grain feed level and silage feed value, and their possible interactions, on feed intake, animal performance, diet digestibility and meat eating quality from finishing beef cattle.
“Crimping did not alter carcass gain and, therefore, provides a biologically equally effective method to store grain as conventional methods, which involved harvesting at higher DM concentrations, treating with an acid-based additive and processing prior to feeding,” said Teagasc’s Tim Keady, who led the trials in Ireland.
“We also found that increasing silage feed value increased animal performance, the response being greater than increasing grain feed level by 2.4 kg DM per day,” he added.
His team carried out a completely randomised design study involving 132 continental crossbred beef steers was undertaken to evaluate the effects of method of grain treatment and feed level, and grass silage feed value on animal performance, carcass characteristics and meat quality of beef cattle.
Winter wheat was harvested and the grain was stored either ensiled crimped and treated with 4.5l/tonne of a proprietary acid-based additive (crimped), ensiled whole and treated with 20kg feed-grade urea per tonne (urea) or stored conventionally in an open bin treated with 3 litres of propionic acid per tonne.
Two grass silages, of contrasting feed value – low and high – were ensiled. For the conventional, crimped and urea treatments, grain dry matter concentrations were 802, 658 and 640g/kg respectively.
For the low and high feed value silages, DM concentrations were 192 and 240g/kg and D values were 671 and 730g/kg DM respectively.
“For the conventional, urea and crimped treatments, DM intakes were 8.85, 9.43 and 9.04 kg/day and estimated carcass gains were 0.60, 0.55 and 0.61 kg/day respectively,” said Dr Keady.
“And for the low and high feed value grass silages, estimated carcass gains were 0.56 and 0.61 kg/day respectively. For the low and high grain feed levels, estimated carcass gains were 0.56 and 0.61 kg/day respectively.”
Grain treatment, grain feed level or silage feed value did not alter meat quality, lean colour or fat colour. But there were significant silage feed value and grain feed level interactions for final live weight (LW) and daily live-weight gain (DLWG).
“Increasing grain feed level increased final LW and DLWG when offered with the low-feed value silage, but grain feed level had no effect on final LW or DLWG when offered with the high-feed value silage,” said Dr Keady.
“So we concluded that urea treatment of grain increased silage intake and feed-conversion ratio (kg DM intake per kg carcass) and tended to decrease carcass gain.
“Crimping provides a biologically equally effective method to store grain as conventional methods. Improving grass silage feed value had a greater impact on animal performance than increasing grain feed level by 2.4 kg DM per day,” he added.
Full_paper (pdf)
Full details: Keady TWJ, Lively FO, Kilpatrick DJ and Moss BW: “The effects of grain treatment, grain feed level and grass silage feed value on the performance of, and meat quality from, finishing beef cattle.” Animal 2: 149-159. www.bsas.org.uk
For further information contact: BSAS on 0131 445 4508
