Growth in rotational grazing of young bulls from Romosinuano and Blanco Orejinegro creole breeds in Colombia

Objective. Evaluate the growth performance of young Romosinuano (ROMO) and Blanco Orejinegro (BON) bulls under a rotational grazing system. Materials and methods. The test was performed at the El Nus Experimental Facility, in the Colombian Andean region, where. 20 BON and 16 ROMO young bulls from fifteen commercial livestock farms were evaluated. The animals were kept as one whole group during 221 days in a rotational grazing strip with short occupation periods, out of which they were fed for 56 days through simple grazing and for 165 days under three different grazing phases with food supplements. Weight was taken at 28-day intervals and variables such as: weight evolution, total and daily weight gain, weight differences and the relationship between body weight and intake rate were evaluated. Results. The initial average weight for the BON breed was 180.4±36.9 kg for 9.6±1.74 months of age, and 171.8±32.6 kg for the ROMO breed at an average age of 10.1±3.2 months. The general increase for individuals between intervals was 0.497 kg/day for the BON breed and 0.366 kg/day for the ROMO breed. In the efficiency test the food intake rates were 64.8% and 71% for BON and ROMO respectively, which represent a dry matter intake of 0.47% and 0.53% in relation to live body weight. Conclusions. This work presents a higher performance in BON breed individuals compared to the ROMO breed and indicates a high variability in the response to a semi-intensive grazing system in those evaluated populations.