Characterization of cattle production systems in Santarém, Pará, Brazil

With the objective of identifying the main problems of cattle nutrition in the production systems of Santarém, Pará, Brazil, ranchers in different regions of the municipality and who owned 10% of the municipality's animals were interviewed at random. The ranchers raised mostly beef cattle; only 9.5% had dairy cattle. The infrastructure conditions are inappropriate; only 23.8% of the ranches have adequate facilities for beef cattle management and 61.9% of the ranchers do not consider weight control. Weed invasion was considered the main problem of the pastures (61.9%). The most common forage was Brachiaria brizantha, used exclusively in 42.9% of the ranches. 76.2% of the ranchers used a complete mineral supplement, with macro and micro elements, while 19% used only salt (NaCl) with micro elements; the other 5% did not use mineral supplements at all. The phosphorus concentration in the mineral supplement at 76.9% of the ranches was less than the minimum level suggested for beef cattle and only 19% of the ranches had appropriate mineral feeders.

Bovine; Mineral supplements; Phosphorous; Pasture management