Sorghum silage (SS) or sugar cane silage (SC) supplemented with cottonseed meal to adjust the diet’s crude protein concentration to 16%, were fed to black and white Holstein calves, to evaluate their performances concerning feed consumption, weight gains and food conversions. The animals presented 97.7kg +-1.0 kg liveweight at the beginning of the trial, which consisted of a 14 days adaptation period followed by a 70 days experimental period. Sorghum silage presented higher daily weight gains averages than sugar cane silage: 0.601 kg against 0.378 kg (p<0.05), feed conversion (kilograms of dry matter consumption by kilogram of liveweight gain) of 7.760 and 12.830 (p<0.05) and a protein conversion of 1.444 and 2.210 kg of ingested crude protein by kilogram of liveweight gain (p<0.05). Daily dry matter consumptions (4.638 kg and 4.671 kg); and daily protein consumption (0.798 kg and 0.805 kg) respectively for SS and SC, were not statistically different (p>0.05).
Sugarcane; Sorghum silage; Calves
