Green Feed Lick Trial

Trial Benefit of PROVIDING ANIMALS WITH RumenWorks GREEN FEED LICK

Objectives

To demonstrate the benefits of supplementing animals with RumenWorks Green Feed Lick for:

1. Weight gain
2. Feed efficiency

Materials and Methods

Duration of the trial

The trial ran for approximately 49 days.

Stocking rate was set at a rate that allowed undisturbed grazing for the 49 day period.

On each site there were 2 paddocks of similar area with their own water source.  Each group had access to cereal hay throughout the trial period.

Pasture Management

Oats pasture was planted in line with Normal Agronomic Practices.

Once grazing oats was established, the trial begun.

On day 0 of the trial, a pasture cut of 1m2 was taken of the 2 paddocks.  Randomly selected sites of 1m2 were then taken on day 49 at the completion of the demonstration.

Cattle Management

Day -17:

Cattle were randomly drafted into 2 groups of 10. Cattle that went into the GFL group were introduced to this 14 days prior to trial starting to ensure consumption. All cattle were weighed at this time and then run on similar feed types.  Cattle were tagged and a FEC was done.

Day 0:

Cattle were weighed, drafted and placed onto their control and treated groups.

Day 0-42:

Lick was kept up to the GFL group and a record kept of the total amount of GFL consumed.

Day 42:

Cattle were weighed.

Results

This equates to a difference of 3.3kgs in 17 days or a group average 404.5kgs/3.3, 0.8% difference.

These steers then went onto oats and for the next 49 days with Rumenworks Green Feed Lick available to the trial group.

Over the 66 days of the trial, the cattle fed Green Feed Lick put on 93kgs averaging 1.41kgs/head/day.

In comparison, the control group put on 84.5kgs over the 66 days with an average daily weight gain of 1.28kg.

This equates to a 10% improvement in liveweight gain.

The Green Feed Lick oats area had 30.08% more feed left than the control group.