Consumo, digestibilidade e desempenho de novilhas alimentadas com casca de café em substituição à silagem de milho

The objective was to evaluate the replacement corn silage by coffee hulls in the diet on performance, total apparent digestibility of dairy heifers. Twenty-four dairy Holstein heifers, purebred and crossbred, were assigned, according to animal initial weight, to a randomized block design with four treatments (Coffee hulls levels: 0.0, 7.0, 14.0, and 21.0% DM basis) and six replicates. All heifers were daily fed 2.0 kg concentrate. DM intake linearly increased, while fresh matter ( FM) intake was not affected by the inclusion of coffee hulls in the diets. The increment of DM intake was approximately 20 g per unit of coffee hulls added to the diet (% DM) and the average intake of FM was 13.84 kg/d. Digestibilities of DM, OM, CP, CHO, NDF and the concentration of NDT in the diet linearly decreased with the replacement of corn silage by coffee hulls, observing a reduction of 0.158 percent units in the digestibility of the DM per unit of coffee hulls added to the diet (% DM). The inclusion of coffee hulls negatively affected the weight gain that linearly decrease (5.51g BW) per unit of coffee hulls added to the diet), as the coffee hulls levels increased, in replacement of corn silage. Coffee hulls could replace corn silage up to 14% level, DM basis, in diets for dairy heifers.