A comparison of unwilted and wilted grass silages offered to beef cattle without and with monensin sodium

A randomized block experiment was conducted to compare unwilted and wilted grass silages and the effects of the feed additive monensin sodium on the silage intake and performance of finishing beef cattle. Two regrowths from a predominantly perennial ryegrass (cv. S24) sward were ensiled either without wilting or after field wilting for 3 d (dry matter (DM) concentrations 161 and 266 g kg⁻¹ respectively). Both silages were treated with formic acid (2·6 and 30 litre t⁻¹ respectively) and were well preserved. The silages were offered ad libitum to forty-eight Charolais-cross cattle (thirty-two steers and sixteen heifers, mean initial live weight 351 kg) for 145 d. All animals received 2·2 kg concentrates per head daily and half of those on each silage treatment received in addition 200 mg monensin sodium per head daily. Silage DM intake was 5.04, 504. 5·48, 5·63 ± 0.134 kg d^−l; fasted liveweight gain was 0·69, 0·77. 0·64 and 0·73 ± 0.033 kg d^−l and carcass gain was 0·47, 0·50, 0·40 and 0·45 ± 0·020 kg d⁻¹ for the unwilted silage without and with monensin and the wilted silage without and with monensin respectively. It is concluded that wilting grass of low DM concentration for 3 d prior to ensiling reduced the performance of finishing beef cattle below that obtained from well-preserved unwilted silage in spite of a higher DM intake being achieved with the wilted silage. The inclusion of monensin sodium in a silage-based diet increased performance without significantly affecting feed intake.