Avaliação de silagens de capim BRS capiaçu colhido em duas alturas e aditivadas com milho na dieta de ovinos confinados

Abstract

The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of BRS Capiaçu elephant grass silage harvested at different heights and added with corn in the diet of confined sheep. Twenty-eight male animals, without a defined racial standard, with an average age of six months and an average initial live weight of 26.29±0.46kg, were used, distributed in a randomized complete block design, with seven replicates over a period of 60 experimental days. The diets were composed of corn silage (SM), BRS capiaçu elephant grass silage harvested at 4 m height (SC4m), BRS capiaçu elephant grass silage harvested at 4 m + 10% corn (SC4m+10%M) and BRS capiaçu elephant grass silage harvested at 2.5 m height + 20% corn (SC2.5m+20%M) based on natural matter. The animals submitted to diets containing SC2.5m+20%M (43.04 g/kg BW) and SC4m (40.44 g/kg BW) showed the highest dry matter intake (DMI), while those consuming SM (29.53 g/kg BW) showed the lowest intake (P=0.0001). For the digestibility coefficients, the neutral detergent fiber digestibility (NDF) of the diets containing SC4m+10%M and SM were higher than the other diets, obtaining values of 590.95 g/kg and 581.11 g/kg, respectively (P=0.0001). The animals consuming SC2.5m+20%M (2.59 L/day) and SC4m (2.42 L/day) demonstrated greater water intake via feed (P=0.0001), while the animals fed SM showed greater water intake via drinker compared to the other diets (P=0.0001). For total water intake, no statistical difference was observed (P=0.5826), with an average value of 3.32 L/day. For total gain (P=0.0013), animals fed SM (8.81 kg), SC4m (9.90 kg) and SC4m+10%M (8.73 kg) did not differ from each other. For feed efficiency, there was an effect in relation to gNDF/hour (P=0.0162), where SC4m (0.31 g NDF/hour), SC4m+10%M (0.23 g NDF/hour) and SM (0.22 g NDF/hour) presented the best values, but no effect was observed for gDM/hour (P=0.1010), and rumination efficiency (P=0.4192), obtaining average values of 0.44 and 0.27 g DM/hour, respectively. For the chewing variables, there was a statistical difference for chewings/day (P=0.0003), where SM (24667.8 n°/day) presented the lowest value compared to the other diets, for gDM/cake (P=0.0006) SM (2.38 g DM/cake), SC4m (2.30 g DM/cake) and SC4m+10%M (1.74 g DM/cake) did not differ from each other, while SCm+10%M (1.74 g DM/cake) and SC2.5+20%M (1.24 g DM/cake) presented the lowest values. Thus, SC4m+10%M was the one that most resembled SM in terms of DFDN and GT, thus being recommended as an alternative to replace corn silage.