Influences of Feeding Seleniferous Whole Crop Barley Silage on Growth Performance and Blood Characteristics in Growing Hanwoo Steers

This study was conducted to investigate effects of feeding seleniferous whole crop barley silage (WCBS) on growth performance and blood characteristics in growing Hanwoo steers. A total of 20 growing Hanwoo steers, initially weighing on average 208.8 kg of body weight, were used and treatments were consisted of 1) controls : 0.1 mg/kg Se, 2) T1 : 0.3 mg/kg Se, 3) T2 : 0.9 mg/kg Se by combining seleniferous and/or non-seleniferous WCBS, and 4) T3 : 0.9 mg/kg Se of inorganic Se treatment. Five steers were allocated to each treatment, and the trial was lasted for 90 days. All experimental diets were included to 30% of combination of seleniferous and/or non-seleniferous WCBS, and in T3 diet, sodium selenite that corresponds to 0.9 mg/kg Se was added to control diets. Also, the diets were isonitrogenous and isocaloric among treatments. Dietary level and type of selenium did not affect feed intakes and daily gain, and blood glucose concentration was significantly (p less than 0.05) lower for controls than T1 and T2 treatments. Blood total lipid concentration was significantly (p less than 0.05) decreased with increasing levels of dietary selenium, and also that of T2 and T3 was significantly (p less than 0.05) lower than controls. LDL-cholesterol concentration was significantly (p less than 0.05) lower for treatments including dietary selenium than controls, and also blood triglyceride concentration was significantly (p less than 0.05) lower for T2 than controls. Overall, it was tended that feeding seleniferous WCBS or inorganic Se increased blood IgG concentration, and in the same dietary selenium levels, T2 treatment was higher for IgG than T3 group (p greater than 0.05). Blood selenium concentration was significantly (p less than 0.05) increased by feeding increasing levels of seleniferous WCBS, but there was no significant difference between controls and T3 group. These results showed that feeding seleniferous WCBS to growing Hanwoo steers was responsible for saccharide and lipid metabolism, and in particular, it reduced their total lipid and blood LDL-cholesterol concentrations. Furthermore, selenium present in seleniferous WCBS rather than inorganic selenium was better available in intestinal absorption, and it might help to enhance immunity in growing and younger stages of Hanwoo steers.