Carbohydrate supplements for beef cattle on grass/clover and grass/lucerne mixtures

Abstract

It is generally recognised that spring grass does not provide a balanced ration for the grazing animal, since it contains excess of nitrogenous substances in relation to carbohydrate. Young lucerne similarly contains more nitrogen than is necessary to provide a balanced feed. When grazing these types of herbage, the animal wastes much of the ingested nitrogen. If the ration included carbohydrate rich foods in addition to the high quality herbage, the animal might be able to utilise more of the nitrogen it is consuming.In this country little experimental evidence is available on the use of carbohydrate supplements for beef cattle, although several firms produce high carbohydrate cakes with low fibre content, for feeding in conjunction with young succulent grass.