A grazing experiment on rangeland was conducted at the Estação Experimental Agronômica, UFRGS, Eldorado do Sul, RS, Brazil, to evaluate the average daily gain per animal and liveweight gain per hectare of beef cattle, pasture accumulation rate, dry-matter production , crude protein content, in vitro organic matter digestibility and litter percentage in dry matter, under levels of 4.0, 8.0, 12.0 and 16.0% liveweight as forage on offer. Forage on offer conditionated different residual dry matter/area. By reducing the grazing pressue there was an increase in residual dry matter/ha. Different amounts of forage on offer affected animal performance. The best accumulation rate of the pasture, average daily gain and liveweigh gain/ha were obtained under the range of 11.5 and 13.4% of forage on offer. The quality of dry matter available was reduced by increasing the amount of forage on offer.
forage on offer; grazing pressure; residual DM; average daily gain per animal; liveweigh gain per hectare; animal production
