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Supplementing growing cattle grazing native subtropical Campos grasslands during winter improves the low, even negative, average daily weight gain (ADG) typical of extensive animal production systems in Uruguay. Nonetheless, to render the practice profitable, it is crucial to control supplement feed efficiency (SFE), that is, the difference in ADG between supplemented and control animals (ADGchng) per unit of supplement dry matter (DM) intake. Little has been studied specifically on how SFE varies in these systems. The objective of this study was to quantify the magnitude and variation in SFE of growing beef cattle grazing stockpiled native Campos grasslands during winter and assess putative associations with herbage, animals, supplements, and climatic variables. We compiled data from supplementation trials carried out in Uruguay between 1993 and 2018, each evaluating between one and six supplementation treatments. The average ADG of unsupplemented and supplemented animals were 0.13 ±â€…0.174 and 0.49 ±â€…0.220 kg/animal/day, respectively. In both cases, ADG decreased linearly as the proportion of green herbage in the grazed grassland was lower, but the ADG of unsupplemented animals was further reduced when winter frosts were numerous. Estimated SFE were moderately high, with an average of 0.21 ±â€…0.076 ADGchng/kg DM, resulting from average ADGchng of 0.38 ±â€…0.180 kg/animal/day in response to an average supplementation rate of 1.84 ±â€…0.68 kg supplement DM intake/animal/day (0.86%  ±â€…0.27% body weight). No association was found between SFE and supplementation rate or type (protein vs. energy-based; P > 0.05), but forage allowance negatively affected it, and herbage mass positively affected it, yet in a smaller magnitude, suggesting that a balance is needed between the two to maximize SFE. Weather conditions during trials affected SFE (P < 0.05), with greater SFE in winters with lower temperatures and more frosts. Daytime grazing time was consistently lower in supplemented animals compared to their unsupplemented counterparts, whereas ruminating time during the day was similar, increasing as the proportion of green herbage decreased. Herbage intake estimated from energy balance suggested the existence of some substitution effect. This agrees with the moderately high SFE and with the total digestible nutrients-to-protein ratio of these subtropical humid grasslands being higher than in semi-arid rangelands and dry-season tropical pastures but lower than in sown pastures.

RESUMEN

This study investigated the effect of five post-weaning supplementation strategies and two weaning weight groups on long-term growth, puberty and pregnancy percentage of Brahman crossbred heifers. Early-weaned (118 ± 6 kg liveweight) and normally-weaned (183 ± 6 kg liveweight) heifers were allocated to group pens (n = 4 and n = 5/pen for early- and normally-weaned respectively) and offered one of five levels of post-weaning protein supplementation: 0, 1, 2.5, 5 and 10 g of supplement/kg liveweight.day with ad libitum access to a low quality sabi grass (Urochloa mosambicensis) hay during the first dry season (169 days) after weaning. After the post-weaning supplementation period, all heifers grazed the same pastures as a single mob until the end of the experiment and were exposed to fertile bulls from January to May 2016. During the first dry season, supplement intake had a positive linear effect on liveweight gain and hip width gain with no difference in the response between weaning groups. Overall, heifers with higher supplement intakes (i.e. 5 and 10 g/kg) had higher hip height gain (P < 0.005), hip width gain (P < 0.001), body condition score (P < 0.001), and concentration of insulin-like growth factor-1 (P = 0.001), triiodothyronine (P = 0.04) and insulin (P = 0.05) in plasma compared to unsupplemented heifers. These changes resulted in thicker proliferative and hypertrophic zones (both P = 0.03) of the tuber coxae growth plate, larger diameter of terminal hypertrophic chondrocytes (both P = 0.004) at the end of the post-weaning supplementation period when comparing the highest level of supplementation with unsupplemented group. Unsupplemented heifers from both weaning weight groups demonstrated compensatory liveweight gain over the first wet season while evidence of catch-up growth in skeletal dimensions was observed in the second wet season. The main determining factor for pregnancy status of two-year-old Brahman crossbred heifers was pre-mating liveweight (P < 0.001), the pre-mating liveweight was in turn affected by post-weaning supplementation (P = 0.02) or weaning weight group (P < 0.001). This study further demonstrated the positive relationship between premating weight and the occurrence of pregnancy, with an approximate 300 kg pre-mating liveweight required to achieve approximately 80% (67.1-90.3% for a 95% confidence interval) probability of pregnancy in two-year-old Brahman crossbred heifers mated for 4 months.

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The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of diet crude protein (CP) content and metabolisable energy (ME) intake on skeletal growth and associated parameters of growing steers prior to and during compensatory growth in weight and catch-up growth in skeletal elongation. The experiment was a factorial design with two cattle genotypes [Brahman crossbred (BX, 178 ± 6 kg) and Holstein-Friesian (HF, 230 ± 34 kg)] and three nutritional treatments; high CP content and high ME intake (HCP-HME), high CP content and low ME intake (HCP-LME) and low CP content and low ME intake (LCP-LME) with the ME intake of HCP-LME matched to that of LCP-LME. Nutritional treatments were imposed over a 103 d period (Phase 1), and after this, all steers were offered ad libitum access to the HCP-HME nutritional treatment for 100 d (Phase 2). Steers fed the high CP content treatment with a low ME intake, showed higher hip height gain (P = 0.04), larger terminal hypertrophic chondrocytes (P = 0.02) and a higher concentration of total triiodothyronine in plasma (P = 0.01) than steers with the same ME intake of the low CP content treatment. In addition, the low CP treatment resulted in significant decreases in bone volume (P = 0.03), bone surface area (P = 0.03) and the concentration of bone-specific alkaline phosphatase in plasma (P < 0.001) compared to steers fed the HCP-HME treatment. A significant interaction between genotype and nutritional treatment existed for the concentration of thyroxine (T4) in plasma where HF steers fed LCP-LME had a lower T4 concentration in plasma (P = 0.05) than BX steers. All steers with a restricted ME intake during Phase 1 demonstrated compensatory growth during Phase 2. However, HF steers fed the LCP treatment during Phase 1 showed a tendency (P = 0.07) for a greater LWG during Phase 2 without any increase in dry matter intake. Results observed at the growth plate and hip height growth suggest that catch-up growth in cattle may also be explained by the growth plate senescence hypothesis. Contrary to our initial hypothesis, the results demonstrate that greater CP intake during ME restriction does not increase compensatory gain in cattle during re-alimentation.

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To test the hypothesis that ammonia detoxification in ruminants consumes amino acids to the detriment of milk protein production, we infused four lactating dairy cows with ammonium acetate or sodium acetate in switchback experiments. Plasma ammonia concentrations increased to 411 microm within 1 h of the start of infusion of ammonium acetate at 567 mmol/h. The rate constant for ammonia clearance from plasma was 0 x 054/min and the half-life was 12 x 9 min. Infusion at 567 mmol/h for 1 h followed by 1 h without infusion, repeated four times between am- and pm-milking, caused a decrease in feed intake. Compared with sodium acetate, continuous infusion of ammonium acetate at 360 mmol/h throughout an entire 10-h milking interval increased plasma ammonia concentrations to 193 microm and caused a 20% decrease in milk, protein and lactose production with no effect on percentage composition of milk or the yield of milk fat. Arterial concentrations of glucose and non-esterified fatty acids tended to increase; there was no effect on arterial acetate, beta-hydroxybutyrate or triacylglcerol, and branched-chain amino acids, Lys and Thr decreased. Mammary plasma flow, estimated by assuming 100% uptake/output of Phe+Tyr, was significantly correlated with milk yield. Mammary uptakes of acetate tended to be reduced by hyperammonaemia, but uptakes of other energy metabolites and amino acids were not affected. Thus, while an increase in amino acid consumption during hyperammonaemia was apparent from the drop in circulating concentrations of Leu, Ile, Val, Lys and Thr, there was no evidence to support the hypothesis that milk yield is affected by the lower concentrations. An ammonia-induced depression in feed intake may have caused the decrease in milk synthesis.

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