DOI: 10.25338/b88d37
title: Data from: Cattle are more motivated for a high-concentrate diet than Sudan grass hay, despite low reticulorumen pH

description: Subacute ruminal acidosis (SARA) is characterized by chronic low ruminal
 pH, and occurs for feedlot cattle fed high-concentrate diets.
 Forages slow digestion and reduce acid production. We aimed to
 assess how motivated finishing cattle are to access forage (Sudan grass
 hay, SG) via their willingness to interact with an electrified
 barrier. Reticulorumen pH was measured to relate the results to digestive
 health. Twenty-eight animals fed a high-concentrate ration ad
 libitum had access to 4 L of one of two treatments (n = 14/treatment) fed
 1×/d behind a barrier: 1) SG or 2) an additional offering of the
 normal ration (total mixed ration [TMR]). To access their treatment, the
 steer voluntarily pushed his muzzle against an electrified
 barrier. The electrical current was increased exponentially every 24 h (0,
 156, 312, 625, 1,250, 2,500, 5,000 μA) until the animal ceased
 accessing it. Visits to the treatment were recorded continuously 24 h/d
 and reticulorumen pH was measured every 10 min. Time with a
 reticulorumen pH below 5.8 was 348 ± 101 and 280 ± 76 min/24 h for SG and
 TMR animals, respectively; these durations meet the criterion for
 SARA. However, animals with access to SG were less likely to advance to
 the next current than TMR animals (P &lt; 0.01) and were
 approximately 3× less willing to interact with higher currents
 than TMR (mean maximum current touched: 469 ± 169 and 1,380 ± 254 μA,
 respectively, mean ± SE, P = 0.01). Lower motivation to access SG
 was further demonstrated through fewer visits to the SG (2.4 ± 0.4 vs. 5.3
 ± 0.6 #/d, P &lt; 0.01), and less SG consumed than TMR (32.0
 ± 0.1 vs. 74.0 ± 0.0 %/d, P &lt; 0.01, measured as % due to weight
 differences of SG and TMR). Overall, finishing cattle valued the
 TMR more than SG, likely because of differences in the quantity offered,
 palatability, and familiarity. When rumen health was considered,
 SG animals visited more often (r = 0.5, P = 0.09) and showed fewer failed
 attempts (r = −0.5, P = 0.06) to access forage as the severity
 and duration of pH depression below 5.6, for example, increased. No
 measures of treatment use were related to pH depression for TMR
 animals (P ≥ 0.31). These findings provide evidence that cattle are
 motivated for Sudan grass hay when experiencing chronic low
 reticulorumen pH. However, they also contribute to the mixed evidence
 about the motivation for forage in this life stage, because,
 overall TMR was valued more highly than SG. Despite widespread pH
 depression, TMR cattle contrafreeloaded for additional concentration,
 demonstrating unexpectedly high motivation for this
 resource. 
description: Please see the methods described in the associated research
 publication. 
description: Please see the information in the associated README file. 
description: # Data from "Cattle are more motivated for a high-concentrate diet
 than Sudan grass hay, despite low reticulorumen pH" [Access this
 dataset on
 Dryad](https://datadryad.org/stash/share/h_-8877d17syiX3HybX8_VUSswrmw_iWP_0lVcwZIlo) The corresponding paper references the supplemental materials in this document. The means, standard errors, and confidence intervals are reported in the RMarkdown for all data. Missing data has been denoted in the raw data files with “NA”. ## Description of the data and file structure ### Tables and captions (see "Supplemental Tables 230926.pdf") * *Supplemental Table S1*; Effect of interacting with an aversive electrified barrier to access 4 L of either SG or TMR on behaviours in finishing cattle fed a high-concentrate diet for current periods -3 to 0. * *Supplemental Table S2*; Back-transformed means and SE for models analyzing the effect of interacting with an aversive electrified barrier to access 4 L of either SG or TMR on behaviours in finishing cattle fed a high-concentrate diet for current periods -3 to 0. ### Both the Reference Guides and the Videos are found in a separate Dryad repository for an earlier publication: Coon, R.E., and C.B. Tucker. 2023. Data from: Measuring motivation for alfalfa hay in feedlot cattle using voluntary interaction with an aversive stimulus. Dryad. doi:10.25338/B8HW7R. ### Reference Guides * *Supplementary Materials - Description of electrified barrier 230915.pdf* - Reference guide for building electrified barrier. * *Supplementary Materials – Instructions for daily electrified barrier assessment 221128.pdf* – Reference guide for daily assessment of electrified barrier’s functionality. ### Videos * *Confident visit.mp4* – Example of a confident visit to the treatment bin. * *Unsuccessful attempt.mp4* – Example of an unsuccessful attempt to access the treatment bin. ## Data and Code This section includes the data and code used for this paper. All data in this section were collected from 28 steers fed a high-concentrate finishing ration for at least 30 days before the start of the experiment. Six animals (5 SG and 1 TMR) were removed from analyses because they did not visit their treatments during the 24 h before the start of the experiment. Another TMR animal was removed from analyses because of human error. The resulting sample size was 21 animals (9 SG and 12 TMR). Nine 24-h periods were removed from various animals’ data (including behavioural, intake, and pH) and subsequent analyses due to technological failure. * *MPP 220302.xlsx*; The maximum current animals willingly touched the electrified barrier at was recorded as the maximum price paid (MPP) in μA. There were no animals that continued to access the treatments at the maximum current produced by the device (5000 μA) and thus all animals received a “1” in the “Censored” column. * *Behavioural and pH Data 240113.xlsx*; The behaviours “Confident_visit”, “Unsucc_attempt”, and “RIC_visit” were counted each time the animal was observed performing them and then summed by 24-h period. The latency to access the treatment behind the electrified barrier following morning feed delivery (0800 h) was recorded in min/24 h and labelled in the spreadsheet as the behaviour “Latency”. “Percent_Intake” is the mean percent intake of either TMR or SG consumed during the 24-h period. The number of minutes per day spent below a reticulorumen pH of 5.8 were recorded as sum of 10-minute periods in the “Time_below_5.8” column. The “AUC_pH_5.8” is the Area-Under-the-Curve for reticulorumen pH 5.8. The “AUC_DMI_5.8” is the “AUC_pH_5.8” value standardized by DMI. The same calculations were completed for pH 5.6 in the columns “Time_below_5.6”, “AUC_pH_5.6”, and “AUC_DMI_5.6”. Mean, maximum, and minimum reticulorumen pH were calculated on a daily basis, and recorded in the “Mean_pH”, “Max_pH”, and “Min_pH” columns, respectively. * *Descriptive RIC Data 230211.xlsx*; Visits to and intake in kg from the primary bin were summed by 24 h period in the “Visit_PB” and “Intake_PB” columns, respectively. Visits to the treatment bin where the animal did not consume anything were summed by 24 h period in the “Visit_No_Intake” column. Time spent eating from both the primary and treatment bin were combined on a daily basis in minutes in the “Time_Spent_Eating” column. The “Intake_TB” column is daily intake from the treatment in grams. ### RMarkdown Code Annotated versions of the Rmarkdown files in .rmd and .pdf can be downloaded in and run in R, or viewed in the pdf format. * *Models and figures for MPP and survival analyses 230926 (pdf and .Rmd)* * *Models and figures for behavioural data 240113 (pdf and .Rmd)* * *Models and figures for AUC correlations 240113 (pdf and .Rmd)* ## Software All analyses were conducted in R Studio and all packages and versions are included in the RMarkdown files listed above.