Effects of amount offered on the intake and selection of barley straw by growing cattle

A 28-day experiment with 12 9-month-old cattle (275 kg initial weight, M 1 ), used a 2 × 2 arrangement of treatments to compare the effect of doubling the ad-libitum quantity of long barley straw offered daily (25 or 50 g dry matter (DM) per kg M 1 ) and sex/genotype (Limousin × Friesian steers or Friesian heifers) on intake and selection. All animals received a protein concentrate at 20 g DM per kg M 1 0·75 per day. Prior to the experiment the cattle had grazed for 6 months and were given no pre-experimental change-over period. On day 1 animals were weighed (M 1 ), allocated to treatment and penned individually. Animals were weighed on day 28 (M 2 ). Doubling the amount offered did not affect straw intake (g DM per kg M3 per day; M 3 = mean of M 1 and M 2 ) during days 22 to 28 (steers: 17·9, 17·2; heifers 14·3, 13·3; s.e. 0·50) but increased the proportion (g DM per kg DM offered) refused (steers: 258, 635; heifers: 412, 721; s.e. 22). During days 22 to 28, at each level of offer (25, 50), refused straw contained (g DM per kg DM) less leaf-plus-sheath than offered straw (25 g steers: 251, 430, s.e. 16·7; 50 g steers: 393, 450, s.e. 19·7; 25 g heifers: 304, 420, s.e. 7·2; 50 g heifers: 405, 446, s.e. 9·6). The sex/genotype effect on intake was attributed to differences in growth potential. Straw intakes increased significantly over the first 14 days, but there were no differences between days 15 to 21 and days 22 to 28. It is concluded that an excess-feeding strategy, involving a doubling of the ad libitum amount of barley straw offered did not result in growing cattle consuming more straw, in contrast to published results with sheep and goats. However, the cattle did show a limited ability to selectively consume leaf-plus-sheath in preference to stem but the improvement in diet digestible organic content (estimated in vitro) was presumably insufficient to stimulate intake.