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

Table 9 Effects of age at first forage consumption on apparent nutrient digestibility and digestible nutrient intake in dairy calves at week 12 of age (n = 10 per group)

Item	Treatment				SEM	P value
Item	CON	EHAY	MHAY	LHAY	SEM	Trt
Digestibility, %
DM	76.3	70.3	74.7	76.1	1.89	0.17
OM	79.6^a	71.9^b	75.5^ab	79.5^a	2.05	0.03
CP	81.0	73.7	74.9	78.8	2.30	0.11
NDF	50.5	45.3	53.8	58.7	3.62	0.08
ADF	55.4	52.1	58.6	64.7	3.35	0.07
Starch	98.7^a	97.9^b	98.0^ab	98.7^a	0.26	0.04
EE	89.2	82.3	86.4	87.3	1.88	0.17
Digestible nutrient intake, g/d
DM	2,369.0	2,142.4	2,179.6	2,471.5	86.5	0.14
OM	2,291.2	2,109.2	2,111.1	2,337.8	88.7	0.15
CP	574.3^a	485.2^b	492.8^b	558.6^a	21.9	0.01
NDF	272.0^a	301.6^b	314.6^b	367.2^b	17.9	< 0.01
ADF	183.9^a	202.9^b	209.4^b	243.0^b	10.5	< 0.01
Starch	991.8^a	865.7^c	889.1^bc	963.3^ab	28.4	0.02
EE	36.67^a	28.7^b	31.25^ab	33.14^ab	1.89	0.02

DM Dry matter, OM Organic matter, EE Ether extract, SEM Standard error mean, Trt Treatment
CON Calves were fed starter concentrate without forage 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 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