Animal Science, Department of
Nebraska Beef Cattle Reports
Date of this Version
2022
Citation
2022 Nebraska Beef Cattle Report
UNL Beef, Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Abstract
A digestion trial was conducted to determine the effect of corn milling method when processing dry or high-moisture corn on nutrient digestion. Treatments were evaluated as a 2 × 2 factorial with the first factor as corn type [dry corn or high-moisture corn] and second factor as mill type [roller mill or hammer mill]. Feeding high-moisture corn decreased the amount of excreted dry matter and organic matter regardless of processing method, but there tended to be an interaction between corn type and milling method for digestibility. There was no difference between milling treatments fed as high-moisture corn, but hammer milled dry corn was more digestible than dry rolled corn. Cattle fed high-moisture corn based diet had greater starch digestibility compared to dry corn, but milling method had no impact. There was no difference in average pH, but feeding high-moisture corn diets resulted in greater variance and greater area under pH 5.6 compared to dry corn diets. Overall, feeding cattle high-moisture compared to dry corn increased nutrient digestibility, but milling method had limited impact.
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