Resumen de Efecto del uso de paja de cebada o heno de alfalfa en dietas unifeed sobre la ingestión y el comportamiento de terneras en crecimiento

Ana Madruga, M. Rodriguez-Prado, E. Mainau, José Luis Ruiz de la Torre Casañas, L. A. González, Xavier Manteca Vilanova, Alfred Ferret i Quesada

• Eight Simmental heifers were used in a crossover design experiment to compare the effects of using two different forage sources, barley straw and alfalfa hay, on intake and feeding behaviour in growing heifers fed high-concentrate diets offered as a total mixed ration. Treatments were: a) total mixed ration with barley straw as forage source, and b) total mixed ration with alfalfa hay as forage source. Both of them were offered ad libitum. The experiment was performed in two 28-d periods, and sampling was carried out in the last week of each period. Samples of feed offered and refused for each heifer were collected daily for 7 d in the sampling week for DM determination and chemical analysis. Behaviour of the animals was recorded for 24-h on d 2, 4 and 6 of the last week of each experimental period. Differences were analyzed by using the MIXED and GLIMMIX procedures of SAS. The model contained the fixed effects of treatment, period and their interaction, and the random effect of heifer nested within sequence. No differences were found in total dry matter, crude protein and NDF intake, or in water consumption. Time spent eating, drinking and ruminating were not different between treatments