Body weight gain and feed intake in calves supplemented with urea or meat meal

Abstract

This experiment was conducted to evaluate body weight gain and feed intake of early-weaned calves fed with diets supplemented with urea or meat meal. Nine Holstein calves with 57 kg of mean body weight were used during 84 days in a completely randomized design to compare two treatments: T1, hay + concentrate containing urea and T2, hay + concentrate containing meat meal. The hay was ground and consisted of 30% of diet. Average dry matter intakes and body weight gains were higher for T2 (2904 vs. 2567 g/day and 817 vs. 712 g/day, respectively), but feed convertion rates were similar between treatments (mean of 3,59).