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

Table 7 Effect of the age at first forage consumption on daily rumination time and the age at first rumination and starter consumption

Item	Treatment				SEM	P value
Item	CON	EHAY	MHAY	LHAY	SEM	Trt	Time	Trt × Time
Daily rumination time, min/d	281.3	278.8	283.8	279.5	9.11	0.97	< 0.01	0.04
The age at first rumination, d	15.5	12.3	13.9	14.1	0.94	0.06	-	-
The age at first consuming starter, d	6.76	6.04	6.76	6.75	0.49	0.61	-	-
The age at first consuming forage, d	-	5.11^a	7.91^b	12.1^c	0.22	< 0.01	-	-

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 the forage from d 7 to 9, LHAY = Calves began to consume the forage at latest (from d 10 to 15) time possible
^a–cMeans within a row with different superscripts are significantly different (P ≤ 0.05)

ISSN: 2049-1891