Growth and Blood Parameters of Weaned Crossbred Beef Calves Fed Forage Kale (Brassica oleracea spp. acephala)

Table 3

Blood parameters at the beginning and the end of the experiment for calves fed a control hay diet with 1 kg of barley daily (Control), a 50% kale/50% haylage based diet (Kale), management intensive grazing (Pasture), or a grass haylage based diet (Haylage).

Period of the experiment	Treatment	Glucose	Cholesterol	BUN	Total proteins	Albumin	Globulins
		mmol L^−1			g L^−1
Beginning	Control	4.57	2.59	3.66^*	61.8	32.7	29.10
	Kale	4.40	2.66	3.79^*	59.3^*	32.5	26.76^*
	Pasture	4.63	5.66	3.22	60.0^*	32.9	27.16^*
	Haylage	4.69	2.62	2.94	63.2^*	33.8^*	29.32^*
End	Control	4.20	2.37	2.39^b	61.8^a	31.7^b	30.26^a
	Kale	4.77	2.65	1.28^c	54.0^b	32.2^b	21.78^b
	Pasture	4.68	3.48	5.01^a*	56.0^b	35.0^a*	20.87^b
	Haylage	4.45	3.43	2.68^b	54.2^b	30.2^b	23.95^b
SEM		0.14	0.7	0.22	1.3	0.6	1.29
Source of variation		P value
Treatment		0.3	0.2	<0.001	0.002	0.07	<0.001
Period		0.6	0.6	<0.001	<0.001	0.01	<0.001
Treatment × Period		0.05	0.5	<0.001	<0.001	<0.001	<0.001

 ^abValues within the same column with different superscripts differ ().
^*Significantly higher from calves at the other period of the experiment ().
BUN, blood urea nitrogen.