Journal of Integrative Agriculture (Feb 2018)
Effects of dietary forage to concentrate ratio and wildrye length on nutrient intake, digestibility, plasma metabolites, ruminal fermentation and fecal microflora of male Chinese Holstein calves
Abstract
Twenty-eight male, weaned Chinese Holstein calves ((156.8±33.4) kg) were used to investigate the effects of dietary forage to concentrate ratio (F:C) and forage length on nutrient digestibility, plasma metabolites, ruminal fermentation, and fecal microflora. Animals were randomly allocated to four treatments in a 2×2 factorial arrangement: whole-length forage (WL) with low F:C (50:50); WL with high F:C (65:35); short-length forage (SL) with high F:C (65:35); and SL with low F:C (50:50). Chinese wildrye was used as the only forage source in this trial. The grass in the SL treatments was chopped using a chaff cutter to achieve small particle size (∼50% particles >19 mm). Dry matter intake (DMI) and organic matter (OM) intake was increased by increasing both F:C (P0.05). Microflora similarity was 50–73% among the different treatments. It is concluded that the WL with high F:C (65:35) diet is suitable for weaned calves.