Purdue University
Agricultural Experiment Station
Lafayette, Indiana
Mimeo. A.H. 123 December 1, 1953
SUPPLEMENTING GROWING AND FATTENING RATIONS FOR CATTLE
W. M. Beeson and T. W. Perry Department of Animal Husbandry
Cattle were designed to convert large amounts of roughages (high cellulose feeds) into edible beef. Approximately 85 percent of all food nutrients consumed by cattle are derived from roughage feeds in the form of pasture, hay, silage or stalk by-products. Therefore, the improvement in the effeciency of the production of beef must come primarily through learning how to convert high cellulose feeds such as: corn cobs, straw, corn stalks, cottonseed hulls, cotton bolls, peanut hulls, sugar cane begasse, peavine silage, sweetcorn refuse, corn silage, sorghum silage, grass silage, dry range forages and pasture into highly efficient growing and fattening rations.
Research findings show that the growth response of cattle is affected greatly by the balance of energy, protein, vitamins, minerals and other factors available to the animal in its daily feed. Cattle possess a powerful mechanism through rumen bacteria to synthesize many nutrients required for life. The billions of bacteria which inhabit the rumen or paunch — if properly nourished--are capable of breaking down and converting indigestible roughages into a usable form. Therefore, in order to properly feed ruminants on high roughage diets, a supplement must be fed which contains adequate nutrients to nourish the microorganisms in the rumen or paunch and also to meet the daily nutritional requirements of the animal.
Purdue Cattle Supplement A was developed to improve the utilization of low quality roughages and this formula has been effective in supplying the nutrients required for a well balanced diet with a large variety of feed conditions. The formula is as follows: * 2