Lots of vitamin D for steers – June 2011

Effects of the inclusion of dried molassed sugar beet pulp in a low-forage diet on the digestive process and blood biochemical parameters of Holstein steers

M. Mojtahedia and M. Danesh Mesgaranlow danesh at um.ac.ir
a Center of Excellence in the Animal Sciences Department, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, P.O. Box 91775-1163, Mashhad, Iran
Livestock Science,
Received 15 July 2010; revised 10 May 2011; accepted 16 May 2011. Available online 20 June 2011.

We evaluated the effects of substituting various concentrations of dried molassed sugar beet pulp (SBP) for barley grain in low-forage diets on chewing behavior, ruminal fermentation, nutrient digestibilities and blood biochemical parameters using four ruminally cannulated Holstein steers in a 4 × 4 Latin square design over 28-day periods.

Steers (368 ± 8 kg initial body weight) were fed 9.5 kg of dietary dry matter (DM) as a total mixed ration (TMR)
(containing 350 g forage and 650 g concentrate per kg DM) twice daily at 0800 and 1600 h.

The diets were formulated to supply approximately 2.3 times the maintenance requirements of the animals so that there was no refusal. Barley grain in the basal experimental diet (330 g/kg DM) was replaced with 0, 110, 220 and 330 g SBP on a DM basis to create the experimental diets SBP0, SBP110, SBP220 and SBP330, respectively. Ruminal fluid was collected by suction through the rumen cannula from before the morning feeding (0.0 h) to 8 h after feeding at 30-min intervals. Eating, ruminating and total chewing time linearly (P < 0.01) increased with the proportion of SBP in the diet. Moreover, mean ruminal pH showed linear and quadratic increases (P < 0.05) with the inclusion of SBP. In contrast, the substitution of SBP for barley grain resulted in a linear and quadratic decrease (P < 0.01) in the mean ruminal ammonia concentration, which was highest in steers fed SBP0. In addition inclusion of SBP gave significantly (P < 0.05) higher acetate and butyrate molar proportions and lower propionate and total volatile fatty acids (VFA) concentrations in the rumen fluid. Total tract apparent digestibility of DM and neutral detergent fiber (NDF) increased quadratically with the proportion of SBP in the diet, but crude protein (CP) and acid detergent fiber (ADF) digestibilities were similar among treatments. Plasma urea nitrogen (PUN) before the morning feeding decreased linearly (P < 0.01) with SBP inclusion and was highest and lowest for SBP0 and SBP330, respectively (21 vs. 16.26 mg/dl). Other blood biochemical parameters and venous blood gasses (including plasma glucose, blood pH, CO2 pressure, O2 pressure, oxygen saturation, base excess of extracellular fluid, base excess of blood and bicarbonate) were not affected by the treatments (P > 0.05). These results suggest that partial replacement of barley grain with SBP at low and moderate inclusion rates might improve the chewing behavior, ruminal environment and nutrient digestibility of Holstein steers fed low-forage diets.
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The email pointing to this article had the following (probably from the PDF)

Guaranteed analysis: 20 g/kg Mg, 50 g/kg K, 30 g/kg Zn, 20 g/kg Mn, 30 g/kg Fe, 3 g/kg Cu, 0.01 g/kg Se, 0.1 g/kg Co, 0.1 g/kg I,

500 IU/g of vitamin A, 100 IU/g of vitamin D, and 1 IU/g of vitamin E.

This appears to be 100 IU of vitamin D per gram of concentrate
1300 grams pf concentrate per day
So 130,000 IU of vitamin D per day per steer
Or 35 IU per Kg
So a 82 Kg mammal/person would get 2870 IU vitamin D per day
Similar to other vet. references below
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See also VitaminDWiki

• Overview Veterinary and Vitamin D
• Do animals need more vitamin D than humans
• Calves do well with 1930 IU of vitamin D - 6X more that feed recommendations - May 2010
• Swine need sunshine or 500-2800 IU vitamin D3
• Monkeys got 1000 IU - but vitamin D in blood varied with HDL – May 2011
• Lambs get 12,000 IU vitamin D per lb of milk replacer much more than RDA for humans
• All items in category Veterinary and D 151 items
• 10 million IU of vitamin D3 for cows was great unless had vitamin D2 – July 2011 - not daily