Two experiments were conducted with the objective of evaluating the use of high- moisture corn silage for growing horses. In the first experiment 12 male foals, 11 months old, with live weigth of 232.17±10.22 kg, were used in a digestibility trial to determine nutritional feeding value of high moisture corn silage. Two diets were used, a reference diet and one test diet, in which high- moisture corn silage replaced 25% of reference diet on dry matter basis. Total feces collection method was used for determination of apparent digestibility. The average values obtained for digestible dry matter, digestible protein, digestible fiber, digestible neutral detergent fiber, digestible acid detergent fiber, digestible starch and digestible energy, based on dry matter, were respectively, 86.66%, 4.94%, 0.83%, 3.56%, 1.28%, 70.63% and 3.667 kcal/kg. In the second experiment 16 male foals, 12 months old with live weight of 238.67±18.85 kg were used. In a completely randomized design with four replications and one animal for each experimental unit in a 90 days period. The trial consisted of a reference diet and three levels of replacement (35, 65 and 100%) of corn dry grain by high-moisture corn silage, formulated to be isoprotein and isocaloric. There were no effects of diets on perfomance variables (average daily gain, wither height increase, heart girth increase, knee and cannon circumference) for growing foals. The results showed that high-moisture corn silage is a good alternative to replace corn grain for growing foals.
digestibility coefficient; foals; high-moisture corn silage; performance
