Indicators of zootechnical and economic performance of replacing ground corn with cactus pear in the diet of lactating Guzera cows

The objective of this work was to indicate the adequate level of substitution of ground corn by cactus pear in diets of Guzera during the lactation period. Were used five Guzera cows, and the experimental design used was the Latin square 5 x 5. The five treatments consisted of increasing proportions of cactus pear energy content in total digestible nutrients (TDN) replacing the TDN content of corn in the dry matter (DM) of the feed (0 25 50 75 and 100%). The data were submitted to analysis of variance and the means compared by the regression analysis by the SISVAR program. No differences were found regarding nutrient intake in general, due to the substitution levels adopted. For voluntary water intake and water contained in food, substitution levels presented linear decreasing and increasing effects respectively, with no effect on the total consumption of water/day. For milk production, milk corrected to 4g/kg of fat as well as the chemical composition of milk, no effects of substitution levels were observed. It is possible to completely substitute the energy of the corn by the cactus pear in diets for lactating Zebu cattle with production estimated at up to 8 kg/day, without affecting the consumption ofnutrients, milk productivity and composition, in addition to leading to better economic indices.