The objective of this study was to evaluate the productive and economical performance of supplemented crossbreed steers during the dry season. Twenty five holstein x zebu steers, with 367.7 kg of live weight and 24 months old, grazing in five paddocks of Brachiaria decumbens (3 ha), were used. The supplements were constituted of grounded corn, whole soybean seeds, urea, ammonium sulfate and mineral salt, and were formulated to contain levels of 12, 16, 20 and 24% crude protein (CP) as fed basis, which constituted the treatments S12, S16, S20 and S24, respectively. The supplements were supplied to the animals in the level of 4 kg/animal/day. A group of animals were allotted to untreated control treatment (SAL) and received exclusively mineral salt. CP levels in the supplements caused quadratic outcome on the variables average daily gain (ADG), final live weight (FLW) and necessary days to reach 450 kg of live weight (D450), which presented critical responses on the CP levels of 19.53% (0.943 kg), 19.38% (465.8 kg) and 19.22% (90.6 days), respectively. The supplementation allowed superior animal performance compared with SAL, which presented averages of daily gain, FLW and D450 of 0.277 kg, 397.4 kg and 312.4 days, respectively. The carcass dressing percentage (CD) and the proportions of muscular, fatty (FT) and bone (BT) tissues in the carcass were not influenced by the composition of supplements. However, supplemented animals presented larger CD and FT and smaller BT compared with SAL. The economical evaluation of the supplements showed larger crude income for S20.
Brachiaria decumbens; carcass dressing; weight gain
