. 2019 Dec 11;9(12):1123. doi: 10.3390/ani9121123

Table 2.

Effects of dietary energy and slaughter age on growth performance of Holstein-Friesians bulls.

Item ¹	LE			ME			HE			SEM	p-Value ²
Item ¹	20	23	26	20	23	26	20	23	26	SEM	Diet	Age	Diet × Age
DMI ³ (kg/d)	8.42 ^ab	9.30 ^c	9.97 ^d	8.18 ^a	8.83 ^b	10.2 ^de	8.72 ^b	10.5 ^e	12.0 ^f	0.16	<0.001	<0.001	<0.001
ADG (kg/d)	0.95 ^a	0.93 ^a	1.10 ^b	0.92 ^a	1.00 ^ab	1.28 ^c	1.00 ^ab	1.28 ^c	1.50 ^d	0.04	<0.001	<0.001	<0.001
FCR	8.71 ^bcd	9.56 ^d	9.49 ^d	9.02 ^cd	8.83 ^bcd	8.07 ^ab	8.91 ^cd	8.33 ^abc	7.89 ^a	0.25	0.002	0.096	0.012
Body weight (kg)	580 ^a	661 ^b	799 ^d	575 ^a	672 ^b	838 ^d	583 ^a	723 ^c	898 ^e	14.3	0.001	0.001	0.048
HCW (kg)	308 ^a	354 ^b	460 ^e	311 ^a	380 ^c	484 ^e	320 ^a	410 ^d	522 ^f	14.9	<0.001	<0.001	0.056
Dressing percentage (%)	53.05 ^a	53.50 ^ab	57.62 ^c	54.04 ^ab	56.48 ^c	57.74 ^c	54.80 ^b	56.69 ^c	58.18 ^c	0.39	0.002	<0.001	0.099

¹ LE: low energy; ME: medium energy; HE: high energy. 20, 23 and 26 represent bulls slaughtered at 20, 23 and 26 months of age, respectively. ² p-value: ^a–f Least squares means within a row lacking a common superscript differ (p < 0.05) due to dietary energy × slaughter age interaction. ³ DMI: dry matter intake; ADG: average daily gain; FCR: feed conversion ratio, the ratio of DMI to ADG; HCW: hot carcass weight.