Evaluación de la inclusión de Leucaena Leucocephala sobre los parámetros productivos de bovinos en fase de ceba.

Abstract

Livestock production has been one of the traditional economic activities of Colombia, which in recent years has experienced an advance in the mode of production through the implementation of technification of production systems, introducing improvements in animal breeds, changes in their food and nutrition, and modifying aspects such as the modes of production from extensive livestock to intensive livestock, in order to increase the quantities produced as well as maximize returns in the short term. The present investigation was carried out at the Los Recuerdos farm located in the Vereda Oripaya, municipality of San José de Cúcuta and aimed to evaluate the productive parameters of cattle in the fattening phase supplemented with Leucaena leucocephala. A randomized complete block design was established, with a witness and a treatment in which it was supplemented with 800g per animal per day of this fodder, with 10 replicas for each group and a total of 20 experimental units. The parameters of weight gain, feed conversion, feed efficiency, carcass performance and supplementation costs were evaluated, taking data weekly for three months. To the results obtained, descriptive statistics, variance analysis and mean comparison analysis were applied to determine the differences between the control group and the treatment. Finally, a Pearson correlation analysis was performed to estimate the effects of race, age and sex on these indicators.