SUBSTITUIÇÃO DA SILAGEM DE MILHO POR GRÃO DE AVEIA NA TERMINAÇÃO DE NOVILHOS PURUNÃ EM CONFINAMENTO

Abstract

It was aimed to evaluate the effect of whole grain oats on the diet in replacement of corn silage on performance, nutrient digestibility, ingestive behavior and carcass traits in confined cattle. Therefore, a study was conducted at the Fazenda Modelo Experimental Station (FMEE), from the Agronomic Institute of Paraná (IAPAR) of Ponta Grossa-PR. The experimental treatments were constituted by five levels of substitution of the corn silage by white oat grain (DM basis), thus being identified: 0A = 50% of concentrate + 50% of corn silage (control); 25A = 50% concentrate + 37.5% corn silage + 12.5% whole white oats; 50A = 50% concentrate + 25% corn silage + 25% whole white oats; 75A = 50% concentrate + 12.5% corn silage + 37.5% whole white oats; 100A = 50% concentrate + 50% whole white oats. Thirty five Purunã steers with initial BW of 241 kg ± 5,51 kg and initial mean age of 10 months were used. The animals were divided into five lots, balanced by weight and age. The experiment lasted 120 days divided into four sub periods, being a period of adaptation to the experimental diets and three experimental periods. The performance was evaluated throughout the trial period. To determine the digestibility of nutrients, a total fecal harvest was carried out for five consecutive days (between days 103 and 107 of the experiment). Between the 119th and 120th day of the experimental period, the ingestive behavior of the animals was evaluated for 24 hours, with individual observations every 10 min. On the last experimental day, ruminal fluid was collected by means of an esophageal probe to determine the ruminal pH. After the end of the experimental period, the animals were kept in the same diets until the day of slaughter. For DMI, expressed in kg/d (P = 0.02) or in g/PV0.75 (P<0.001) there was an interaction effect between the treatments and the experimental periods. In all experimental periods, a quadratic effect was observed. During the periods 1 and 2 the highest DMI (kg/d) were presented by the animals that received the diet containing 75% of oats instead of corn, but in the period 3 the highest DMI was observed for the animals of the 50A diet. For ADG there was no interaction between diets and experimental periods, however, there was a quadratic effect of oat contents on this variable, with the highest ADG observed for animals fed with the diet containing 50% oats instead of silage of corn. Feeding efficiency (FE) was affected in a quadratic manner (P = 0.01) for oat contents, with the animals receiving diet 75A those with the worst FE (0.15) and animals treated with 100% of corn silage replacement per oats were those that presented the best FE (0.23). The digestibility of OM and NDF linearly decreased with increasing levels of oats. Otherwise, the digestibility of CP showed a quadratic response, the lowest value of which was observed for the diet containing 75% of corn silage substitution for oats. Linear decrease was also observed for ruminal pH according to oat contents, which is consistent with the linear decrease in the rumination and chewing times in min/d in response to increasing oat inclusions in the diets. As observed for ADG, BW at slaughter was higher for animals fed with the diet containing 50% replacement of corn silage by oats, a similar effect was found for the degree of marbling.