The basal diet, comprised primarily of orchardgrass
hay to minimize dietary starch intake, was fed in 12
equal portions daily at 2-h intervals. Metabolizable energy
intake of the basal diet was designed to approximate
1.5 and 2.0 times maintenance energy requirements
of growing steers. The ME value of the basal diet
was determined to be 2.32 Mcal/kg of DM in a previous
experiment (McLeod et al., 2001). Additionally, the
basal diet was formulated to meet the rumen-digestible
intake protein requirement for steers in the R-SH treatment
and the MP requirement for steers (250 kg of BW)
gaining 0.84 kg/d