Abstract
The objective of this research was to evaluate the quality of the forage mass of a native pasture covered by 70% of Eragrostis plana Nees (South African lovegrass) under continuous grazing of primiparous cows. The following chemical characteristics of forage components leaves and stems of South African lovegrass and native species were evaluated: organic matter in vitro digestibility (OMIVD), crude protein (CP), and neutral detergent fiber (NDF). The protein and mineral metabolic profile in blood was associated with the supplements common salt, mineral salt, protein salt and reproduction salt. There was higher crude protein content in leaves and stems of South African lovegrass in winter (9.4% and 6.7) and spring (8.9% and 6.6), respectively. Metabolic protein in the blood did not differ among supplements (P> 0.05), but levels of albumin (34.5 to 25.3 g/L) and urea (36.2 to 30.1 mg/dL) decreased from winter to summer. There was deficiency of the average content of mineral phosphorus for cows supplemented with protein salt (3.9), mineral salt (3.3) and common salt (2.2) in spring and common salt (2.9 mg/ dL) in summer. Primiparous cows managed on native pasture with a prevalence of 70% coverage of South African lovegrass need mineral phosphorus supplementation with reproduction salt in spring and summer.
Keywords:
crude protein; leaf; organic matter in vitro digestibility; native species; neutral detergent fiber
