The objective of the present study was to identify possible effects of replacing corn and cottonseed meal by pearl millet on digestibility of nutrients in diets and on performance of cattle in feedlots. Diets with a 65:35 roughage:concentrate ratios were composed of corn and pearl millet silages as roughage (50:50, based on natural matter) and five levels of pearl millet replacing corn and cottonseed meal (0; 23; 49; 80 and 96% natural matter) in the concentrate. It was used random block designs in both experiments. Five replicates were used to evaluate performance and four replicates for evaluating intake and in vivo digestibility. Dry matter (DM) intake, expressed in body weight (BW) percentage and g/kg BW0.75 linearly decreased when pearl millet was introduced into the diet, thus 2.91% and 108.5g and, 2.5% and 92.53 g were registered for diet exclusively with corn and pearl millet, respectively. Digestibility of dry matter, crude protein, and total carbohydrates were not affected, whereas digestibility of ether extract reduced and fiber digestibility linearly increased without affecting contents of total digestible nutrients. Daily body weight gain, dry matter intake and feed conversion were not affected by adition of pearl millet, either, therefore, it is possible to replace corn and cottonseed meal by pearl millet in rations for cattle in feedlot.
digestibility; feed conversion; intake; weight gain
