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Table 1 Nutrient composition of backgrounding diet (% of DM) fed to cattle

From: Microbiome network traits in the rumen predict average daily gain in beef cattle under different backgrounding systems

Item

Backgrounding1

Finishing2

Nutrient composition3

DL

PP

CC

ALL4

Moisture

41.2

80.3

91.7

37.9

Dry matter

58.8

19.7

8.3

62.1

NEm, Mcal/kg

1.6

1.5

1.6

1.9

Neg, Mcal/kg

1.06

0.9

0.97

1.4

Starch

31.4

–

–

39.6

NDF

33.4

47.7

28.1

25.3

CP

12.6

21.3

19.5

13.4

Fat

4.3

3.6

2.6

4.9

Ca

0.6

0.6

1.3

0.6

K

1.8

2.6

4.1

1.0

Mg

0.2

0.2

0.2

0.2

S

0.1

0.2

0.5

0.2

  1. 1During backgrounding, animals were allocated to either one of three treatments; DL (calves were fed a haylage ration in dry lot), PP (calves grazing perennial pastures) or CC (calves grazing summer grown cover crop) for 55 d
  2. 2During finishing, all animals received four concentrate-adaptation diets over a period of 28 days
  3. 3Calves received free-choice minerals (Wind & Rain, Purina Animal Nutrition LLC, MN) during the backgrounding phase and nutrient analysis conducted on weekly feed samples
  4. 4ALL = calves backgrounded in CC, DL and PP were fed a similar high energy ration
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Animal Microbiome

ISSN: 2524-4671