Thirty-six young bulls (12 Nellore, 12 ½ crossbred Holstein x Nellore, and 12 crossbred ½ Caracu x Nellore) were used to evaluate weight gain, feed conversion, ingestion capacity and apparent digestibility of various nutrients. We use growing and finishing animals. The growing animals had initial weight of 205 kg, and the finishing ones, initial weight of 310 kg. The animals were fedlot to reach the weight of 310 to 330 kg for the growing animals and 450 to 480 kg for the finishing ones. The same diet was supplied to all animals, with concentrate level of 50% in the dry matter and 50% of coastcross hay silage. The animals were fed ad libitum and weighed every 28 days. Weekly samples of ration and individual orts were removed and composed for each period of 28 days. A digestibility test was done at the 50th day of the experimental period. A significant effect of genetic group was not observed on dry matter intake (6.06 kg/day for the growing animals and 905 kg/d for the finishing ones), live weight gain (0.994 and 1.293 kg/d for growing and finishing animals), or digestibility coeficient of evaluated nutrients. The crossbred ½ Caracu x Nellore growing animals presented higher feed conversion (30%) than the other genetic groups. The TDN daily ingestion was 26% smaller than the NRC (1996) predictions.
productive performance; Nellore; crossbred; intake; requirements
