Garcia et al., 2004. Ciência Anim. Bras., 5 (3): 123-129

This experiment was carried out to study the effects of different levels (0, 15, 30 and 45%) of sunflower meal in the concentrate of growing cattle (Holstein-Friesian breed) on the apparent digestibilities of dry matter intake (DM), crude protein (CP), ether extract (EE), nitrogen free extract (NFE), crude fibre (CF), neutral detergent fibre (NDF) and acid detergent fibre (ADF), and to determine the qualitative characteristics of total digestible nutrients (TDN) from the concentrate rations and maize silage, through  in vivo digestion techniques, with the total collection of faeces. 20 cattle with an average initial age of 16 months and an average initial liveweight of 285 kg were utilized. Out of these 20 animals, 4 were utilized to determine the digestibility of the maize silage and 16 were used to evaluate the effect of sunflower meal inclusion in the diet. The cattle were allocated in randomized blocks, with 4 blocks and 4 treatments. The digestibility of the DM and nutrients from the concentrate was calculated by difference assuming constant digestibility coefficients for silage. Increasing the levels of sunflower meal in the concentrates had no effect on the digestibility coefficients of DM (82.3%), CP (82.2%), EE (57.2%), NFE (92.6), CF (44.8%), NDF (72.5%) and ADF (70.5%). It was concluded that up to 45% of inclusion, the sunflower could be utilized efficiently in the diet of growing dairy cattle.