the objective of this study was to evaluate the effects of weaning age on dry matter intake (dmi), average daily gain (adg), feed efficiency (fe), feed cost (fc) and benefit index (bi) of holstein calves reared under organic farming system. thirty two holstein calves were divided into two treatments: early weaning (ew) vs. late weaning (lw). calves in the both groups were provided with whole mi...

With the milk to feed ratio at 2.36 in February, 2008, dairy managers must carefully reviewing feed inputs relative to milk yield. A milk to feed ratio under 3 is a signal to reduce feed inputs. Feed efficiency (also referred to as milk performance efficiency and dairy efficiency) can be defined as pounds of 3.5%FCM (fat corrected milk) produced per pound of dry matter (DM) consumed. Monitoring...

twenty eight lactating buffaloes were used in a completely randomized design with 2×2 factorial arrangement of four experimental diets including low protein–low energy (lp-le), low protein–high energy (lp-he), high protein–low energy (hp-le) and high protein–high energy (hp-he). results showed that the hp-he diet recorded the highest digestibility coefficients of cp, ee, nfe, nutritive values, ...

Studies have been conducted in our laboratory to assess differences in mitochondrial function and biochemistry in male broilers with high and low feed efficiency (FE) from the same genetic line and fed the same diet. Mitochondria obtained from broilers with low FE exhibited greater uncoupling of the electron transport chain (ETC) that was apparently due to site-specific defects in electron tran...

In the beef production system, 70-75% of the total dietary energy is used for maintenance (Ferrell and Jenkins 1984; NRC 1996; Montaldo-Bermudez et al. 1990). Thus, while only 5% of the total life cycle dietary energy consumption is used for protein deposition in beef cattle, swine and poultry are more efficient at 14 and 22%, respectively. The relatively large size, slow maturity and slow repr...