Asian Science Citation Index is committed to provide an authoritative, trusted and significant information by the
coverage of the most important and influential journals
to meet the needs of the global scientific community.
The objectives of the study with growing dairy heifers were to determine the effects on animal performance of (1) concentrate level and (2) the concentrate composition in the grass silage-based diet. Animals (30 heifers) were randomly assigned to three feeding treatments: (1) low level (1.75 kg dry matter (DM)/d) of rolled barley (LB); (2) low level (1.75 kg DM/d) of commercial pelleted concentrate (LC); and (3) medium level (3.5 kg DM/d) of commercial pelleted concentrate (MC). All animals were also offered grass silage and hay. The commercial concentrate contained more crude protein than barley grain (135 g/kg DM vs. 205 g/kg DM). The data were analysed using analysis of variance and differences between the treatments were tested by orthogonal contrasts: LC vs. MC and LB vs. LC. The growth of the heifers increased and carcass conformation improved with increasing concentrate level. Commercial concentrate did not improve animal performance compared with barley grain.
