187 Body Performance of Beef Steers Swathgrazing oat Monoculture or Forage-Blends During Winter Months

Abstract Extended grazing strategies have the potential to reduce beef winter-feeding costs. Beef producers can incorporate monoculture cereal crops in their winter swathgrazing programs, but recently, use of polycrops (also known as intercrops or cover crops) is growing. There little information about cattle body performance when forage blends during months. This study evaluated animal oat a polycrop blend (oat, turnip,canola and pea). Forage systems (treatment) were seeded on 12-hectare site, further separated into 2-hectare paddocks. The paddocks June swathed August at hard dough stage for oats. Forty-two crossbred steers randomly allocated one two replicated (n=3) while balancing weight breed composition. Body weights (BW) determined over consecutive days start end grazing, 2-wk intervals throughout 86 d period. Ultrasound backfat, rumpfat intramuscular fat collected trial. At trial, each replicate group fitted with rumen pH/temperature boluses. biomass yield 6,225±651 4,867±471 kg DM ha-1, respectively, mean regrowth 177 1409 respectively. Start-of-test BW (246, 247kg; P = 0.92), end-of-test (304, 303.5; 0.97), average daily gain (0.68, 0.74 d-1; 0.61), backfat change (0.53, 0.69 mm; =0.65), (0.84,1.30 P=0.14) (-0.12, 0.14%; P=0.66) did not differ assigned systems, Other measures temperatures (39.13oC, 38.96oC; P=0.03) pH (6.76, 6.70; P=0.10) These results suggest that may be an alternative swath system