Digestion Trial
Introduction
To ensure reliability and accuracy, Dr. Terry Engle of Colorado State University solely conducted the digestibility trial. The trial was performed at Colorado State University's new digestion/metabolization facility located in Wellington, Colorado. Dr. Engle and his staff were responsible for the collection and determination of the results.
Materials and Methods
Acclimation Phase
Purebred Angus cows (three-to-four years of age) similar in body weight, pregnancy status, and body type were acclimated on a 100% grass hay diet for three weeks. Diets were fed once daily in the morning in amounts adequate to allow ad libitum access to feed throughout the day (approximately 10% orts). Daily feed offerings were recorded and feed refusal was measured every day. After the three-week acclimation phase, all animals were weighed (2 day average body weight) and conditioned scored. Cows were then blocked by body weight and randomly allotted to treatments.
Treatments consisted of:
- Control - No supplement
- Ore-Bac® (Loomix®)
- 20% All-Natural range cubes
- 20% All-Natural high fat supplement (dry meal)- providing .4lbs soy oil
- Liquid 30 Supplement
- 20% All-Natural supplement that includes 4 lbs. of cracked corn
Phase 1
Treatments groups 1-6 were fed 100% unprocessed corn stalks at the beginning of the study. Diets were fed once daily in the morning in amounts adequate to allow ad libitum access to feed throughout the day (approximately 10% orts). Daily feed offerings were recorded and feed refusal was measured every day. Supplementation began on day 0 of the study for treatments groups 2-6. All supplements were supplemented based on standard supplementing practices, and were balanced to provide each supplement group the same amount of protein. Throughout the entire study, animals were weighed and conditioned scored weekly and feed refusal and supplement consumption was monitored daily. For the first two weeks of the experiment, supplement consumption was monitored to assure that each treatment group was consuming the full amount of their respective supplements prior to initiating the sample collection portion of the trial.
Phase 2
After the two-week acclimation period to corn stalks, animals were body conditioned scored and weighed weekly and diets were fed once daily in the morning in amounts adequate to allow ad libitum access to feed throughout the day (approximately 10% orts). Daily feed offerings were recorded and feed refusal was measured every day. Duration of supplement phase was three weeks.
Phase 3
After phase 2, supplementation was removed and all animals were placed on a 100% grass hay diet. Animals were weighed and diets were fed as mentioned above.
Data to be collected
- Weekly body weights
- Weekly condition scores
- Daily feed intake and supplement consumption
Results
*There was no appreciable difference in dry matter intake with
any of the supplement groups.
