Among cattle finishers, maize grain is seen as a must for achieving fat score on bulls.

However, there is very little research on the topic and almost none carried out and published here in Europe.

With barley being the most common cereal offered to Irish beef cattle, a recent trial at Teagasc Grange evaluated two common forms of maize grain cattle feeds, relative to rolled barley in suckler bull-finishing diets.

Continental breed sucker bulls (550kg) were adapted to one of three finishing diets for 90 days:

  • Rolled barley (86% rolled barley, 6% soyabean meal) (RB in Table 1).
  • Maize meal (43% rolled barley, 43% maize meal, 7% soyabean meal) (MM in Table 1).
  • Flaked maize (43% rolled barley, 43% flaked toasted maize, 7% soyabean meal) (FM in Table 1).

    • Animals were housed on concrete slats and silage and fresh water were available at all times. The three finishing concentrates were formulated to contain similar protein concentrations on a dry matter basis, based on the French PDI system.

    This trial showed that replacing rolled barley with maize meal produced heavier carcases and led to better feed efficiency.

    Differences in carcase fat scores were small, but the trial dispelled the theory that maize produced fatter carcases.

    For more on this and other livestock nutrition research, as well as a guide to all things livestock nutrition, get your hands on the 99-page Feed Manual: The Need for Feed – available on farmersjournal.ie/store.

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