Effect of inoculants in corn silage on dry matter digestibility, ingestive behavior, performance and carcass of heifers

Abstract

We aim to evaluate inoculants with different strains of lactic acid bacteria (LAB) in corn silage on ingestive behavior, apparent digestibility of diet, performance and carcass traits of heifers. The treatments were: corn silage without inoculant (control); with 11CFT inoculant (strains of Lactobacillus buchneri and Lactobacillus casei) and with 11C33 inoculant (Lactobacillus buchneri, Lactobacillus plantarum and Enterococcus faecium) with six repetitions each. Ingestive behavior, weight gain and daily dry matter intake was not affected by the use of inoculants in corn silage. The apparent digestibility of diet was higher to silage with 11C33 inoculant, not differing from the diet with silage with 11CFT (73.30% and 71.99%, respectively). The animals fed silage inoculated with 11CFT obtained greater values of carcass gain and average daily carcass gain (86.33 kg and 0.833 kg day-1, respectively). The use of these inoculants in corn silage shows promising results regarding the gain of animals in feedlot.

Keywords

• Biological additive
• Apparent digestibility
• Carcass gain
• Weight gain
• Lactobacillus buchneri.