Performance, behaviour and meat quality of beef heifers fed concentrate and straw offered as total mixed ration or free-choice

Eighteen Simmental heifers were fed concentrate and barley straw offered as a total mixed ration (TMR) or separately as a free choice (FCH) to compare performance, behaviour, and meat quality. The heifers were assigned to treatments in a randomized complete block design. Animals were allotted to roofed pens with 3 animals per pen, and 3 pens per treatment. Intake of concentrate, average daily gain, and gain to feed ratio were not different between diets, being on average 7.6 kg/day, 1.38 kg/day and 0.18 kg/kg, respectively. Straw intake was greater in TMR than in FCH treatment (0.7 vs 0.3 kg/day, respectively; p<0.001). Crude protein intake, neutral detergent fibre intake and water consumption did not differ between treatments. Time spent eating was longer in FCH than in TMR (p=0.001), whereas time spent ruminating and total chewing time were longer (p