Dietary Management Strategies to Mitigate Decreased Feed Intake Associated with Terminal Implant Administration in Finishing Beef Steers
- 1 Department of Animal Science, South Dakota State University, Brookings, SD, United States
Abstract
Re-implanting with a terminal implant often reduces subsequent dry matter intake (DMI). Crossbred steers (n = 27, initial body weight = 385 ± 30.8 kg) were used to assess the effects of locomotion immediately after terminal implantation and increased forage inclusion 7-d post-implantation on feed and water intake, rumination, and activity. Steers were implanted with 100 mg trenbolone acetate and 14 mg estradiol benzoate (Synovex Choice; Zoetis, Parsippany, NJ) and fed a finishing diet (1.43 Mcal NEg/kg DM). Steers were re-implanted on d-87 with 200 mg trenbolone acetate and 28 mg estradiol benzoate (Synovex Plus; Zoetis). Steers were allocated into 3 post-implanting treatments: (1) Moved 0.43 km following re-implanting (CON), (2) Moved 1.05 km (ACT), or (3) Moved 1.05 km with increased forage for 7d (ACT + DIET). Feed and water intake were measured using an Insentec RIC system (Hokofarm, Marknesse, Netherlands) with activity measured using accelerometer tags (Sense Hub Beef; All Flex Livestock Intelligence, Madison, WI). Treatment did not affect cumulative DMI or cattle performance (p ≥0.67). Treatment and day interacted for DMI with CON greater than ACT + DIET on d5-10 (p ≤0.05) and tended (p = 0.06) to be greater on d4. Treatment and day interacted for rumination time (p = 0.02) with ACT and ACT + DIET greater than CON on d5 and ACT ruminating longer on d14 than either CON or ACT + DIET. Cumulative rumination time increased for ACT and ACT + DIET compared to CON (p ≤0.001). Activity time differed (p = 0.001) between all treatments. Treatment affected cumulative water intake (p = 0.001) with ACT steers drinking less than CON or ACT + DIET. Increased activity tended to reduce DMI immediately following re-implantation. Increased roughage inclusion after re-implanting did not affect DMI or performance but increased rumination time.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3844/ajavsp.2024.360.370
Copyright: © 2024 Alexandria Kelly, Warren Rusche, Forest Francis, Michael Gonda, Cody Wright and Zachary Smith. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
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Keywords
- Feedlot
- Re-Implant
- Roughage
- Activity
- Water