Urea levels in multiple supplements for beef cattle during dry season

Abstract

This work has studied the influence of different urea levels in the performance of steers Nelore, in substitution to soybean meal during dry season. Twenty steers with average weight of 270kg were used, kept in Brachiaria brizantha cv Marandu pasture, during winter, being evaluated the following treatments: T1, pasture and mineral mixture; T2, pasture and supplement with 4% of urea; T3, pasture and supplement with 8% and T4, pasture and supplement with 12% of urea - which have been supplied at the ratio 0.2% of animals live weight. The supplements were composed by mineral mixture, soybean meal, corn ground and urea. A completely arranged experiment was used, with four treatments and five replicate and the data was submitted to variance and regression analysis. The increment of urea levels on supplement have not affected the performance of animals, however, there was difference among animals kept on mineral mixture (0.073 kg/animal/day) and supplemented animals (0.309kg/animal/day). In economic profitability evaluation, all urea levels presented positive gain, while the animals that were supplied only with mineral mixture had negative gain. The supplement with 4% of urea presented higher return under capital applied and reduced the time required to be attained 450kg of animal body weight.