The individual feed intake was not available. However, the average
dry matter intake within each group was available and was 9.02 and
8.43 kg/day in the T and TMR groups, respectively. Cooke et al. (2004)
also observed higher dry matter intake in Charolais cross heifers fed a
cereal-based concentrate diet and chopped straw than those fed a
TMR comprised of grass and maize silages, straw and concentrate mix.
In contrast,Moya et al. (2001) found no significant differences in intake
of DM by heifers fed with grain barley and corn silage as TMR ration or
offered separately (8.97 and 8.33 kg of DM/day, respectively). The live
weight growth pattern was illustrated in Fig. 2 and growth performance
results are shown in Table 2. Average age and weight at start and at end
of fatteningwere 220.6 days and 412.4 days, and 252.3 kg and 526.9 kg,
respectively. No effects of either feeding system or breed were observed
on weight and age at start of the fattening period. Duynisveld and
Charmley (2001) noted that the inclusion levels of silage can be
increased in totally mixed rationswithout compromising animal performance,
and Moya et al. (2001) found that daily gain did not differ
among feeding treatments (TMR or dietary components separately).
The average daily gains of 1.49 kg/day, recorded in the data set throughout
the trial, were higher than those reported by Hoving-Bolink,
Hanekamp, and Walstra (1997) in the Limousine breed (1.04 kg/day)
and by Marino et al. (2006) in Podolian young bulls, and within the
range recorded by Albertí et al. (2008) in fifteen European breeds
(1.97–1.01 kg/day). The highest average daily gain (P b 0.05) was observed
in LI bulls of the T group, similar to that obtained by Egea et al.