Abstract

REYES MONTES, Francisco; NAVA, Guillermo  and  GONZALEZ, Roberto. Performance of grazing growing cattle supplemented with cocoite foliage (Gliricidia sepium), multinutritional blocks, and commercial diet in the Mexican humid tropic. Zootecnia Trop. [online]. 2008, vol.26, n.3, pp.343-346. ISSN 0798-7269.

This study was aimed to evaluate the performance of growing cattle supplemented with cocoite foliage (Gliricidia sepium), multinutritional blocks formulated with bran cocoite, and commercial diet during the dry season (april to may) in a humid tropic condition. The experiment was carried out in an area at Teapa municipality, Tabasco, Mexico. Twenty growing cattle breed of Cebu x Holstein x Simmental with average weight of 230.5 kg were used in rotational grazing of star grass (Cynodon nlemfuensis). A random design corrected by weight covariance was used. Four treatments (T1: control, only grazing, T2: grazing + commercial diet, T3: grazing + multinutritional blocks, and T4: grazing + cocoite foliage) and five repetitions were used. The experiment was conduced during 10 adaptation days and 56 experimental days. In this period the consumption was measurement by the difference between offered and refused. The daily weight gains were 0.664, 1.071, 0.767, and 0.617 kg/anim to T1, T2, T3, and T4, respectively. The costs of supplementation per animal were 1.4, 0.05, and 0.49 USD for T2, T3, and T4, respectively. The results obtained showed that the multinutritional blocks could be incorporated into the grazing growing cattle fattening system.

Keywords : daily weight gain; multinutritional blocks; foliage cocoite; grazing growing cattle.

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