Nutritive Value and Optimum Level of Corn Dust from Seed Milling Process in Beef Cattle Feed

Abstract

The study was conducted in 4 experimental trials. Experiment 1 studied the nutritive value of corn dust and 4 concentrate diets containing corn dust at 0, 20, 40 and 60%, respectively (16% CP on DM basis), it was found that corn dust consisted 88.13% DM and had nutrients on DM basis as follows: 10.93% CP, 12.52% CF, 4.59% EE, 3.54% Ash, 57.79% NDF, 15.26% ADF, and 7.86% ADL. Moreover, DM, EE and ADL decreased significantly (P<0.05) while NDF increased significantly (P<0.05) when the levels of corn dust in the diets increased. Experiment 2 studied the degradation of dry matter in the rumen by using Nylon bag technique. It was found that when the levels of corn dust in the diets increased, the degradation of dry matter tended to increase. Experiment 3 evaluated the digestibility and the energy value of the diets by using the Hohenheim gas production technique. It was found that at 40% of corn dust, GP₂₄ and OMD were the lowest (P<0.05). In addition, when the levels of corn dust in the diets increased, ME decreased significantly (P<0.05). Experiment 4 studied on the performance and the production costs of 16 heads Brahman × native crossbred bulls with the initial weight about 150 kg. The animals were randomly allotted according to the Complete Randomized Design (CRD) into 4 treatment groups. They were fed with rice straw as a roughage and supplemented with one of the concentrate diets containing 0, 20, 40 or 60% of corn dust at 1.25% of body weight for 90 days. The result revealed that the increased levels of corn dust had no effect (P>0.05) on ADG (0.21, 0.21, 0.20 and 0.23 kg, respectively), FCR (18.49, 19.10, 20.00 and 17.61 respectively), and daily dry matter intake (2.70, 2.75, 2.72 and 2.70% of body weight, respectively), but feed cost per weight gain (FCG = 67.32, 60.18, 51.69 and 38.09 baht, respectively) decreased significantly (P<0.05). It was suggested that corn dust could be used in the concentrate of diet for beef cattle as high as 60% which can reduce the production cost.