Animal production from dairy breed steers at extensively managed grasslands in riverside areas

Summary

In Denmark, some of the grassland in marginal areas are abandoned for agricultural use - grassland that it is of interest to preserve because they have a high actural or potential natural quality when managed with extensive grazing or cuttting. A comparison was carried out for three years on sward productivity and weight gain of the steers at two grazing intensities on wet semi-natural grassland. The daily weight gain of steers was on average 667 g at low and 477 g at high grazing intensity. Sward grass yield as dry matter (DM) production was on average 4.1 Mg DM ha4, with no significant difference sound between the two gazing intensities. In vitroorganic matter digestibility (IVOMD) was rexpectigely 56.4 and 53.0 at high and low grazing intensity. It is concluded that the variatin in sward productivity and sward composition between years and grazing intensities was reflected in the production of the steers.