Effectiveness of cottonseed cake fibre included in the diet of Nellore steers finished in confinement

It was aimed to evaluate the use of cottonseed cake (CSC) as a source of physically effective neutral detergent fibre (peNDF) to replace corn silage (CS) in diet of feedlot-finished cattle. The design used was completely randomised, with 2 treatments (30% CSC and 30% CS) and 12 replications. There was interaction between fibre source and nutrient in the material retained in the Penn State Particle Separator. The highest concentrations (P = 0.0001) of peNDF and the in vitro digestibility of peNDF (DpeNDF) were for CSC. There was a higher (p < 0.05) dry matter intake (DMI) and neutral detergent fibre (NDF) intake (NDFI) by the animals on the CSC diet. The CSC-fed steers showed higher (P = 0.0001) final body weight (BW) and total weight gain. The steers fed CSC showed a longer (P = 0.0001) feeding time, feed efficiency, and lower rumination time (P = 0.0001) and rumination efficiency (P = 0.0001). There were positive correlations between the variables: rumination time x intake, rumination time x NDFI and peNDF x DpeNDF. It was observed that there was a negative correlation between the variables: rumination time x peNDF, rumination time x DpeNDF, NDFI x peNDF, and NDFI x DpeNDF. Cottonseed cake is an alternative source of peNDF for feedlot beef cattle.