Food intake and live-weight gain comparisons of Bos indicus and Bos taurus steers on a high plane of nutrition

Abstract

A widespread assumption of people engaged in animal production in East Africa is that exotic cattle are best suited to conditions of good nutrition, coupled with absence of any climatic stress, while the indigenous animal can manage better in poor nutritional circumstances and under conditions of considerable stress. Studies such as those carried out by French (1940) and by Phillips, Hungate, MacGregor and Hungate (1960), were designed to see if, in fact, there were differences in digestive efficiency and rate of passage of gut contents between these two types of cattle which could, in some measure, account for the supposed superiority of the indigenous animal under difficult circumstances.