Evaluation of Novel Feed Ingredients on Finishing and Growing Cattle Performance and Intake Modeling for Growing Cattle

In Exp. 1, feeding conventional DDGS (CONV) or fiber separated DDGS (MSC) to finishing cattle resulted in a linear increase in DMI. A linear increase in ADG was observed for MSC while CONV ADG increased from 0 to 20% and decreased from 20 to 40%. Feed efficiency increased quadratically for CONV and decreased linearly for MSC fed steers. In Exp. 2, the high protein DDG (NexPro), SoyPass, and soybean meal (SBM) were evaluated for rumen undegradable protein content through in situ techniques and fed to growing calves consuming a corn silage-based diet. SoyPass had the greatest digestible RUP as a % of DM, with NexPro intermediate, and SBM the least. Ending BW, ADG, and feed efficiency increased linearly with increasing protein inclusion, independent of type. Metabolizable protein requirements were met by NexPro and SoyPass between 4.5 and 9.0% inclusion, while steers fed SBM were deficient in MP at all inclusion levels. Experiment 3 evaluated the inclusion of GG, a product from South Korea, on nutrient digestibility and fatty acid (FA) flow. There was no effect on total tract DM or OM digestibility with increased GG inclusion. Ruminal apparent and true OM digestibility linearly decreased as GG inclusion increased. Unsaturated FA, Trans FA, and omega-3 FA (g/d) all increased quadratically with an increase from 0 to 15% GG and an increase at a greater rate from 15 to 30% GG. Experiment 4 evaluated current models used to predict DMI in growing calves fed low-energy, forage-based diets. The current model overpredicted DMI at diets less than 64% TDN and underpredicted intake at diets greater than 64% TDN. A new equation was developed using dietary NDF and NEm to predict DMI as a % of BW. This equation had an explanation of variation of 0.5208 and a RMSE of 0.14% BW, greatly improving the values from the current model on the same dataset