The effect of a silage additive and level of concentrate supplementation on silage intake, animal performance and carcass characteristics of finishing beef cattle

An experiment was carried out to examine silage fermentation, effluent production and aerobic stability in unwilted grass silage, which was either ensiled without additive or with a commercially available blend of ammonium hexamethanoate, ammonium hexapropionate and octanoic acid (6 l t^?1, Maxgrass, BP Chemicals Ltd., Northwich, UK) and to determine alternative approaches to obtaining the same performance in finishing beef cattle. Seventy‐two Limousin × Friesian and Charolais × Friesian steers (mean initial live weight 424 kg s.d. 28·3) were blocked into groups of nine according to live weight and previous performance and offered silage, either with or without the additive, and supplemented with 0, 1·5, 3·0 or 4·5 kg d^?1 of a concentrate with a crude protein content of 150 g kg^?1 DM or allocated to a pre‐experimental slaughter group to enable calculation of daily carcass gain. Daily silage intakes were recorded for 112 days. At the end of the experiment, all cattle were slaughtered and daily carcass gain, omental, mesenteric, perinephric and retroperitoneal fat depots [kidney‐knob and channel fat (KKCF)], fatness, conformation, subcutaneous fat depth over M. longissimus dorsi muscle and carcass fat, protein and bone contents were assessed. Across all levels of supplementation, cattle offered the silage with the additive showed significantly (P < 0·001) higher daily DM intakes than those offered the silage without additive. Cattle offered the silage with the additive but unsupplemented had significantly (P < 0·001) higher daily carcass gains than those offered the silage without additive and unsupplemented. The response in carcass gain was 76 and 35 g kg^?1 additional concentrate for the silages with and without the additive respectively.     

The use of toltrazuril for the prevention of coccidiosis in piglets before weaning

SUMMARY: To determine the efficacy of toltrazuril as a prophylactic treatment for coccidiosis in piglets caused by Isospora suis (I suis) , a single 1.0 mL dose of toltrazuril was administered orally to 1056 piglets between 3 and 6 days of age, in 5 piggeries. Prophylactic treatment of piglets reduced the occurrence of coccidiosis in litters from 71% to 22%. The number of antibacterial treatments given and the number of piglets affected per litter were also significantly reduced, resulting in some improvement in growth rates to weaning. The severity of diarrhoea was significantly reduced, as was the amount of oocyst excretion. The number of days that piglets excreted oocysts in the faeces was reduced from 4.9 days to 2.5 days. The detection of J suis in piglets with diarrhoea was reduced from 84% in the untreated piglets to 6% in the piglets given the prophylactic treatment.     

Presence of Zearalenone and trichothecene mycotoxins in Fusarium-infected New Zealand grown wheat

Madam:— Fusarium species fungal infection occurred widely in the 1986 Manawatu and Waikato wheat harvest. A significant amount of grain was rejected because of this infection, commonly indicated by reddish or purplish discolourations.     

Development of expert system modeling based decision support system for swine manure management

Animal waste has always been considered as a resource for agricultural input as biofertilizer. However, the management is becoming more stringent due to environmental regulations. Livestock producers are faced with different manure management options that may be implemented into their operations. Given the expansion of the livestock industry, the implementation of environmental regulations, and the increasing importance of social and health issues, the selection of optimal manure management systems is becoming a strategically important task. Increasingly, integrated decision support systems (DSSs) are becoming necessary to assist decision makers in their evaluation of different manure management alternatives, like, liquid system, semi-solid system, solid system and bio-gas or bio-energy system based on combinations of different manure management sub-systems (collection, storage and application). To address this situation, a user-friendly computer program called Integrated Swine Manure Management (ISMM) is being developed for the Canadian Prairie provinces. Decision criteria including environmental, agronomic, social and health, greenhouse gas emission, and economic factors have been considered for the selection, design, and operation of the DSS. The expert system modeling is based on Visual Basic programming. Decision on adopting a particular combination of systems components is based on performance rating of the overall system. The program is interactive so that weighting factors for the different decision criteria can be varied to suit site-specific considerations. In this paper, the systems approach for development of an integrated liquid manure management system is discussed. Using a case study, sensitivity analysis of different combinations of management components is also reported for systems performance. The decision software compared satisfactorily with other available DSS packages.     

Retrospective study of 108 foals with septic osteomyelitis

Objective   To determine the clinical characteristics, short-term outcome and future athletic performance of foals with septic osteomyelitis.
Design   Retrospective clinical study of 108 Thoroughbred foals with radiographic evidence of bone infection that were presented at the Scone Veterinary Hospital between August 1995 and December 2001. Medical records were reviewed and information concerning signalment, the clinical, laboratory and radiographic findings, treatment and outcome was obtained. Racing records were obtained and evaluated for surviving foals that had reached racing age.
Results   Mean age of foals at initial evaluation was 39 days (range 1–180 days); 21 foals had multiple radiographic bone lesions (19.4%), and 76 had concurrent septic arthritis (70.4%). The most frequently affected bones were the femur, tibia and distal phalanx. In total, 87 foals were discharged from the hospital (80.6%), 79 survived long-term to reach racing age and 52 raced (65.8%). Overall, 48% (52/108) of the foals treated for osteomyelitis raced. Foals less than 30 days of age at the time of diagnosis, critically ill foals and those with multiple bones or joints affected were significantly less likely to be discharged from hospital. Multiple septic joints, but not multiple bone involvement, had an unfavourable prognosis for racing.
Conclusions   The prognosis for survival of foals with septic osteomyelitis or osteitis is favourable. Multiple bone or joint involvement is an important short-term prognostic indicator; however, the involvement of multiple joints, but not multiple infected bones, is associated with an unfavourable prognosis for racing.     

Alternative approaches to predicting methane emissions from dairy cows

Previous attempts to apply statistical models, which correlate nutrient intake with methane production, have been of limited value where predictions are obtained for nutrient intakes and diet types outside those used in model construction. Dynamic mechanistic models have proved more suitable for extrapolation, but they remain computationally expensive and are not applied easily in practical situations. The first objective of this research focused on employing conventional techniques to generate statistical models of methane production appropriate to United Kingdom dairy systems. The second objective was to evaluate these models and a model published previously using both United Kingdom and North American data sets. Thirdly, nonlinear models were considered as alternatives to the conventional linear regressions. The United Kingdom calorimetry data used to construct the linear models also were used to develop the three nonlinear alternatives that were all of modified Mitscherlich (monomolecular) form. Of the linear models tested, an equation from the literature proved most reliable across the full range of evaluation data (root mean square prediction error = 21.3%). However, the Mitscherlich models demonstrated the greatest degree of adaptability across diet types and intake level. The most successful model for simulating the independent data was a modified Mitscherlich equation with the steepness parameter set to represent dietary starch-to-ADF ratio (root mean square prediction error = 20.6%). However, when such data were unavailable, simpler Mitscherlich forms relating dry matter or metabolizable energy intake to methane production remained better alternatives relative to their linear counterparts.     

The prediction of the intake potential of grass silage in the supplemented diets of lactating dairy cows

This study was undertaken to develop models which could be used in conjunction with the near infrared reflectance spectroscopy (NIRS) analysis of grass silage to accurately predict the intake potential of grass silage when offered to lactating dairy cows as part of a mixed diet. Empirical models were developed with data collected from two large-scale studies carried out at the Institute. The models comprised of (1) a linear equation for converting the NIRS-based predicted intake of a given silage for beef cattle to dairy cows and (2) a model which corrected the intake potential of the grass silage for supplementary concentrates. Furthermore, a milk yield adjustment factor of 0.14 kg DM/kg milk was utilised to standardise milk yields. Both linear and exponential models were developed to describe the decrease in silage intake as concentrate intake increased, with y-axis intercepts corresponding to unsupplemented silage intakes (NIRS-based predictions for beef cattle adjusted for dairy cows) and common x-axis intercept of 168.0 (SE=20.50) and 203.8 (SE=5.64) g/kg W^0.75, respectively, corresponding to concentrate intake when offered as a sole feed. A common r parameter (model curvature) of 1.0047 (SE=0.00397) was assumed for the exponential model. When the models were validated against the data from an independent study, the predictions from the two models were not significantly different, giving R² values of 0.70. The intercept and slope from the linear model were 5.39 and 1.01, respectively, and the intercept and slope from the exponential model were 6.10 and 0.98, respectively. Both intercepts and slopes were not significantly different from 0 and 1, respectively. Ninety-three percent of predictions were within 10% of observed intakes in the validation data.