Effect of Total Mixed Ration with Fermented Feed on Ruminal in Vitro Fermentation, Growth Performance and Blood Characteristics of Hanwoo Steers (Report‪)‬

INTRODUCTION The cost of feed production is rising in the livestock husbandry industry, owing largely to dietary dependency on raw material. New feeding habits and strategies employing different roughages are clearly necessary to overcome the problem. The total mixed ration (TMR) has been the subject of great interest from farmers because of its expected benefits in the nutrition, management and production of ruminant animals (Owen, 1984; Howard et al., 1986; Sirohi et al., 2001). Farmers raising homebred fattening cattle are showing increased interest in fibroid material assorted feed, such as the TMR allowance, over concentrates (Kim et al., 2003), because homebred fattening cattle (rapid growing) require more feed intake for rapid body weight gain. It has already been experimentally confirmed that fibroid materials assorted feed is advantageous in maintaining the homeostasis of ruminant stomach pH, reducing the incidence of metabolic disease, and improving milk production (Nock et al., 1986; Harrison et al., 1989; Kellems et al., 991). In recent years, the expediency of feeding cattle a TMR has become widely accepted. The benefits of a TMR include increased feed intake, enhanced use of low-cost alternative feed ingredients, ability to control the forage concentrate ratio, lower incidence of metabolic and digestive disorders, and reduced labor input for feeding (Owen, 1984). TMR is a proper type of feed especially when agricultural by-products with high moisture are to be included (Li et al., 2003). Silage, forage, and hay are the conventional roughages contained in TMR (Chumpawadee and Pimpa, 2009). Including fermented feed in TMR may change its digestibility as well as feed efficiency. However, there is no available information about TMR prepared with fermented feed. Moreover, tall fescue is an imported feed ingredient usually used to prepare TMR, but the use of domestic straw and whole barley, available in Korea, to replace the tall fescue may reduce the feeding cost.