Short Communication: Effects of feeding wheat bran and condensed liquid whey in diets of growing cattle

Abstract

Friedt, A. D. and McKinnon, J. J. 2012. Short Communication: Effects of feeding wheat bran and condensed liquid whey in diets of growing cattle. Can. J. Anim. Sci. 92: 501–504. Wheat bran (WB) derived from abrasion milling prior to ethanol production was evaluated in backgrounding diets for steer calves alone or in combination with condensed liquid whey (CLW) as a partial replacement for barley grain. There was no effect of CLW on any performance parameter, nor was any WB×CLW interaction detected. Average daily gain was not affected (P>0.05) by WB inclusion; however, dry matter intake of cattle fed WB was higher (P<0.01) than that of cattle fed the barley-based diet. Gain:feed and estimated diet NEg content were decreased (P<0.01) by WB inclusion. Ultrasound carcass traits were not (P>0.05) affected by treatment. These results indicate that WB can replace barley grain at levels up to 28% of the diet DM without impacting ADG or composition of gain in growing calves. However, calculated NEg of WB-based diets is lower than that of barley-based diets, thus calves must consume more feed DM to maintain similar gains.