Abstract 499

Escobar,-A; Parra,-R

Inst. Produccion Animal, Facultad de Agronomia, Univ. Central de Venezuela, Maracay, Venezuela.

Tropical-Animal-Production. 1984, 9: 1, 62-67; 27 ref.

The growth of young Holstein cattle 220 kg initial weight was evaluated for 100 days with diets based on ground maize cobs (I) untreated, or (II) treated with NaOH 50 g/kg DM, or (III) ground maize cobs with the alkali mixed into another ingredient of the diet, molasses. The Consumption Index (kg DM/100 kg of their weight daily), rate of gain of weight in g daily and feed conversion for the respective diets were (I) 2.86, 406 and 16.7; (II) 3.13, 700 and l0.8; (III) 2.74, 433 and 13.8. The growth of cattle was significantly improved by the NaOH treatment of the ground maize cobs, and that was associated with an increased availability of energy in the alkali-treated residue.