MILERA, Milagros; SANCHEZ, Tania    MARTIN, G. Morus sp. to feed growing bulls (Technical note). []. , 33, 1, pp. 1-1. ISSN 0864-0394.

The work was developed at the Experimental Station "Indio Hatuey"in Matanzas province, on a Ferralitic Red soil, with the objective of evaluating the inclusion of mulberry forage in growing bull calves under grazing conditions. The trial was conducted with crossbred Holstein x Zebu bull calves, which were eight months old and weighed 108 kg as average, and lasted for 140 days. In a first stage (53 days), the mulberry forage was supplied ad libitum without being chopped and the animals grazed during four hours in the morning, the remainder time they stayed in the barn; while in a second stage (58 days) the animals received chopped mulberry forage and stayed in the barns since 11:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m., the remainder time they had access to grazing. The pasture availability was 3,5 and 2,8 t DM/ha/rotation for the first and second stage, respectively. The mulberry forage showed high protein (20,5-24,6%) and low fiber (16,6-20,3%) values; the intakes were 3,93 and 3,12 kg/animal/day in each stage, respectively. The gains were 0,759 and 0,405 kg/animal/day in stage I and II, respectively. Mulberry is concluded to have high quality when the edible biomass is used as forage and a better utilization was observed when supplying the chopped forage. In addition, with the use of mulberry growing bulls can reach gains higher than 0,400 kg/animal/day as average, without concentrate.

: Green forage; Morus sp; bull calf.

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