Effects of supplementing crude protein to feedlot bison heifers using canola meal or wheat-based distillers’ grains with solubles on feed intake, performance and carcass traits
Bibliographic record
Abstract
This study evaluated how varying crude protein levels in rations that incorporated canola meal or wheat-based dried distillers’ grains with solubles as alternative protein sources affected growth performance, carcass traits, and liver mineral status in feedlot bison heifers. Ninety-six crossbred bison heifers (initial body weight; 215.5 ± 22.2 kg) were stratified by weight and randomly assigned to one of three dietary treatments: (i) a conventional control diet (CON), (ii) CON with canola meal (CM), or (iii) CON with wheat-based dried distillers’ grains with solubles (WDDGS). Diets were fed over a 302-d period, consisting of a 122-d backgrounding phase and a 180-d finishing phase. During the backgrounding phase, CM and WDDGS diets were formulated to 14.0% crude protein (CP) compared with 10.0% in the CON diet. In the finishing phase, CM and WDDGS diets were formulated to 14.0% CP compared to 12.5% in the CON diet. The dry matter intake (DMI) was lower (P = 0.04) in heifers fed CM and WDDGS (5.9 kg/d) compared to CON (6.2 kg/d) during backgrounding. However, average daily gain and gain-to-feed ratio did not differ among treatments in any phase (backgrounding, finishing, or overall; P ≥ 0.27). Final body weight, hot carcass weight, dressing percentage, ribeye area, backfat thickness, marbling occurrence, and liver abscess incidence were not affected by dietary treatment (P ≥ 0.20). Hepatic copper (P = 0.02) and zinc (P = 0.03) concentrations were greater in heifers fed by-product diets compared to CON. A pronounced seasonal pattern in DMI was observed with a peak occurring in summer and a nadir in the winter. These results indicate that bison heifers can achieve similar growth performance and carcass characteristics when fed diets formulated to 10.0% CP during backgrounding and 12.5% CP during finishing, and that increasing dietary CP to 14.0% through the inclusion of CM or WDDGS did not enhance productivity. These results indicate that CM or WDDGS can be fed as protein sources without compromising the performance of bison heifers. Bison producers are always looking for cost-effective feed options that maintain animal performance and meat quality. This study tested the feeding of diets formulated to 14% CP in both the backgrounding and finishing periods to bison heifers relative to those fed unsupplemented control diets. Ninety-six bison heifers were fed one of three diets for approximately 10 mo: a standard control diet (10% CP during backgrounding and 12.5% CP during finishing), or diets formulated to 14% CP using canola meal or wheat dried distillers’ grains with solubles as supplemental protein sources. The results showed that adding these protein sources did not improve the animals’ growth rate, feed efficiency, or carcass quality compared to the standard diet. All heifers, regardless of their diet, reached a similar market weight and produced carcasses with equivalent meat yields and quality grades. As expected, feed intake dropped for all animals during the cold winter months, a natural adaptation in bison known as the “winter slump.” A key finding was that bison heifers performed just as well on a diet containing 10.2% protein as they did on a higher-protein (13.5%) diet in backgrounding and 12.4% protein compared with 14.5% in the finishing phase. This suggests that formulating diets to 14% CP during backgrounding and or finishing is not necessary and that protein levels of 10% and 12.5% respectively, during backgrounding and finishing met the requirements of the feedlot heifers used in this study. While there was no performance or economic benefit from feeding supplemental protein, there was no negative effect of either canola meal or WDDGS suggesting that they could be used as protein supplements if the feeding program so dictated.
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".