Animal Sciences Commons^™

Estimating Livestock Forage Demand: Defining The Animal Unit, Tonya L. Meyer

Department of Animal Science: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The objective of this experiment was to evaluate the effect of a beef animal’s physiological status on forage intake. The experiment was repeated over two years with six replications of three treatments per year: cow-calf pair (CC; BW = 629 kg), dry cow (DC; BW = 503 kg), and yearling steer (S; BW = 305 kg). The cow and calf were treated as one unit, with cow BW and calf BW comprising CC BW. Calves were approximately 42 d of age and weighing 73 kg at the start of each year. Animals were housed in individual pens and fed high …