The nutritive value of ground and pelleted barley straw. I. Ground and pelleted v. long straw for growing Ayrshire heifers

Abstract

1. Twenty-four individually fed yearling Ayrshire heifers were used to compare diets consisting of (1) long barley straw and concentrates; (2) the same quantities of similar foods as in (1) but with most of the barley straw ground and pelleted with a proportion of the concentrates in a ratio of 70:30; (3) replacement of the whole of diet (1) by the pelleted 70:30 mixture to provide a similar theoretical starch-equivalent intake.2. Live-weight gains over an experimental period of 10 weeks were: treatment 1, 0.55 lb./day; treatment 2,0.99 lb./day; treatment 3,1.23 lb./day. These differences were statistically significant and indicated a marked response in energy value due to processing the straw.