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. 2020 Apr 10;10(4):657.
doi: 10.3390/ani10040657.

A Meta-Analysis of the Effects of Slow-Release Urea Supplementation on the Performance of Beef Cattle

Saheed A Salami  1 , Colm A Moran  2 , Helen E Warren  3 , Jules Taylor-Pickard  3
Affiliations

A Meta-Analysis of the Effects of Slow-Release Urea Supplementation on the Performance of Beef Cattle

Saheed A Salami et al. Animals (Basel). .

Abstract

Slow-release urea (SRU) is a coated non-protein nitrogen (NPN) source for ruminant nutrition. This study applied a meta-analytic technique to quantify the effect of a commercial SRU (Optigen®, Alltech Inc., Nicholasville, KY, USA) on the performance of beef cattle. Data were extracted from 17 experiments and analysed using the random-effects model to estimate the effect size of SRU on dry matter intake (DMI), crude protein intake (CPI), live weight gain (LWG) and feed efficiency (FE) of growing and finishing beef cattle. There was no effect of feeding SRU on the overall DMI and CPI of beef cattle. Dietary inclusion of SRU improved the overall LWG (+92 g/d/head) and FE (+12 g LWG/kg DMI/head) of beef cattle. Notably, SRU supplementation in growing cattle exhibited a better improvement on LWG (130 vs. 60 g/d/head) and FE (18 vs. 8 g LWG/kg DMI/head) compared with finishing cattle. Moreover, SRU showed consistent improvements on the LWG and FE of beef cattle under several study factors. Simulation analysis indicated that positive effects of SRU on LWG and FE improved profitability through reduction in feed cost and reduced the emission intensity of beef production. These results indicate that SRU is a sustainable NPN solution in beef cattle production.

Keywords: beef cattle; feed efficiency; growth performance; rumen degradable protein; urea.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors are employees of Alltech which produces and markets Optigen®, the commercial slow-release urea evaluated in this study.

Figures

Figure A1
Figure A1
Funnel plots of raw mean differences (difference in means) against their inverse standard errors and the associated significance (p-value) for testing the publication bias of the studies included in the meta-analysis. Open circles represent individual study comparisons included in the meta-analysis.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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