Nutritional and metabolic evaluation of nellore cows supplemented or not during the peripartum

• Ano de defesa: 2017
• Autor(a) principal: Garcés Cardenas, Javier Enrique
• Tipo de documento: Tese
• Tipo de acesso: Acesso aberto
• Idioma: eng
• Instituição de defesa: Universidade Federal de Viçosa
• Palavras-chave em Português: Bovino de corte - Alimentação e ração; Nutrição animal; Nelore (Bovino); Pastagens; Ciências Agrárias; Zootecnia; Avaliação de Alimentos para Animais
• Link de acesso: http://www.locus.ufv.br/handle/123456789/18828

The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of supplementation during pre- and/or post-calving on performance, nutritional and metabolic characteristics of Nellore cows grazing Brachiaria decumbens. The experiment lasted 120 days from July to November, during dry season and dry – to – rainy transition period. For the experiment, 48 multiparous Nellore cows were used, with an average aged of 6 years. The average body weight (BW) and body condition score (BCS) at the beginning of the experimental period was 501±55 kg and 5.4±0.65, respectively. The experiment was carried out according to a completely randomized design, following a 2 × 2 factorial arrangement, where two supplementation strategies were tested, supplementation (1 kg/d of 20% of crude protein, CP) and no supplementation, during two periods, pre- and post-calving. Therefore, there were four treatments: supplementation during pre- and post-calving (PrePost), supplementation during pre-calving but not during post-calving (Pre), no supplementation during pre-calving but during post-calving (Post), and no supplementation during pre- or post-calving (Control). During the pre-calving, supplemented cows showed a higher intake of dry matter (DM), organic matter (OM), and CP, compared to cows without supplementation (P<0.10). However, supplementation during pre-calving did not affect forage intake (P>0.10), neither digestibility of neutral detergent fiber. Supplementation during post-calving showed an effect on intake of DM and OM when expressed as g/kg of BW (P<0.10). Supplementation during pre- and/or post-calving did not affect BW, average daily gain, BCS, back fat, calves birth weight and calves BW at 60 days old (P>0.10). Supplementation during pre- and/or post-calving did not affect (P>0.10) serum concentration of glucose, total proteins, albumin, globulins, blood urea nitrogen (BUN), non-esterified fatty acids (NEFA) and β-hydroxybutyrate (βHB). Similarly, there were no significant interaction between treatments and time when these variables were measured (P>0.10). However, the concentration of these variables changed significantly depending of the sampling day (P<0.10). In conclusion, that 1 kg/d of 20% of CP supplement for Nellore cows grazing low quality tropical pasture during pre- and/or post-calving on is not enough to improve the performance, nutritional and metabolic characteristics, as well as, there is no carry-over effects of pre-calving supplementation on response post-calving.