Millet compared with wheat and sorghum in high-grain diets for cattle

Abstract

Steers in yards were fed finishing diets of either 90 per cent wheat (32 steers), sorghum (40 steers) or millet (5 steers) grain. The steers fed sorghum were further subdivided into two equal groups receiving either cottonseed hulls or lucerne as the roughage source. Rhodes grass and lucerne were the roughages fed with wheat and millet respectively. The steers had an initial mean shrunk liveweight of 21 5.4 ¦ S.E. 0.35 kg and were aged between 12 and 15 months. Individual steers were slaughtered either at 390 kg, or, those failing to reach this weight after 177 days, were slaughtered at lower weights resulting in an overall mean shrunk liveweight of 367.9 ¦ 2.16 kg. The only significant (P < 0.01) difference in productivity was the lower growth rate of 1.04 ¦ 0.049 kg day-1 of the steers receiving sorghum plus lucerne compared with 1.22 ¦ 00.39, 1.21 ¦ 0.049 and 1.43 0.098 kg day-1 for steers receiving wheat, sorghum plus cottonseed hulls, and millet respectively. The feed conversion ratios (kg dry matter per kg liveweight gain) with wheat, sorghum/cottonseed hulls, sorghum/lucerne and millet were 5.5, 6.0, 6.5 and 5.6 respectively.