Nutrition of beef breeder cows in the dry tropics. 1. Effects of nitrogen supplementation and weaning on breeder performance

Abstract

The effects of two dry season management strategies consisting of timing of weaning and/or nitrogen (N) supplementation on the body reserves, nutritional status and reproductive performance were, commencing in the early dry season, examined in Bos indicus × Bos taurus breeder cows (n = 122) grazing native pasture in the seasonally dry tropics. Cows were early-weaned in April in the early dry season or late-weaned in September in the late dry season. The supplement consisted of loose mineral mix which provided on average 14 g N/day, principally as non-protein N. In the early dry season in April 1997 all of the cows had been lactating for 3–5 months, averaged 363 kg (s.d. = 28) conceptus-free liveweight (CF.LW) and 4.7 (s.d. = 0.6) body condition score (9-point scale), and 53% were pregnant. In addition, from April to June 1997 10/26 non-pregnant lactating cows, and 24/31 non-pregnant non-lactating (i.e. early-weaned) cows became pregnant so that 81% of cows were pregnant by June. Predictions of diet from near-infrared spectroscopy of faeces indicated that the forage diet selected during the dry season (April–November) by the cows contained on average 9% (s.d. = 2) non-grass dicotyledonous plants and 4.4% (s.d. = 0.38) crude protein (CP), while DM digestibility was 51.1% (s.d. = 1.3). The diet CP concentration, the ratio of CP to metabolisable energy (ME) in the diet (mean 5.7, s.d. = 0.53, g CP/MJ ME) and faecal N concentration (mean 1.05, s.d. = 0.097, % N) all indicated that unsupplemented cows were deficient in dietary N during the dry season. Microbial CP synthesis in unsupplemented non-lactating cows decreased from 360 to 107 g microbial CP/day, or from 6.5 to 2.4 g microbial CP/MJ ME intake, as the dry season progressed from May to September 1997. Net endogenous N transfer to the rumen of up to 2 g CP/MJ ME apparently occurred from May to August. Microbial CP synthesis was 25% higher (P < 0.001) in lactating than in non-lactating cows. From April to September cow CF.LW was improved by 0.35 kg/day (P < 0.001) by early weaning, and by 0.11 kg/day (P < 0.10) by N supplementation, but there was no interaction (P > 0.10) between these treatments. From April to June 1997 calf LW gain averaged 0.79 kg/day, but from June to September was only 0.10 kg/day in unsupplemented paddocks and 0.13 kg/day in N-supplemented paddocks. Pregnant cows calved from November 1997 to March 1998. During subsequent mating 96% of non-lactating cows, but only 17% of lactating cows became pregnant. During the 1997–98 wet season there was compensatory LW gain of lower CF.LW non-lactating cows but not of lactating cows. In conclusion, weaning early in the dry season had a much greater effect than a non-protein N-based supplement to conserve breeder cow body reserves, and the effects of the two management strategies were additive.