The age at first consumption of forage in calves and its effect on growth and rumination in the short- and long-term

Table 3 Effect of the age at first forage consumption on solid and total DMI during the calf period (d 1 to 84)

Item	Treatment				SEM	P value
Item	CON	EHAY	MHAY	LHAY	SEM	Trt	Time¹	Trt × Time
Stater DMI, g/d	952.4	823.5	829.3	916.9	47.2	0.17	< 0.01	0.37
Hay DMI², g/d	-	94.3	102.3	116.3	20.2	0.75	< 0.01	< 0.01
Hay/Total solid², %	-	19.1	18.0	14.2	1.90	0.19	< 0.01	< 0.01
Total solid feed DMI, g/d	952.9	917.5	942.6	1,033.5	49.5	0.53	< 0.01	0.83
Total DMI, g/d	1,715.0	1,674.6	1,704.8	1,795.3	47.7	0.38	< 0.01	0.69

DMI Dry matter intake, BW Body weight, ADG Average daily gain, SEM Standard error mean, Trt Treatment
CON = Calves were fed starter concentrate without forage from d 1 to 84, HAY = Starter concentrate and forage were fed to calves free choice from d 1 to 84; EHAY = Calves began to consume forage at the earliest (from d 4 to 6), MHAY = Calves began to consume forage from d 7 to 9, LHAY = Calves began to consume forage at latest (from d 10 to 15) time possible
¹For all variables, data were summarized by week
²Since CON were not fed hay, data analysis was restricted to the HAY groups only

ISSN: 2049-1891