Feedlot Cattle Nutrition and Metabolism

Book excerpt: The increasing demand for high-quality beef has led to the necessity of including higher levels of cereal grains and its by-products into cattle diets. In this context, adequate nutrition of beef cattle involves knowledge of energy and nutrient requirements to define specific nutritional strategy. The evolution feeding strategies to feedlot cattle depends on advances related to ruminant metabolism, as well as to the ruminal microbiota. Furthermore, a continuous flow of knowledge development in feedlot cattle nutrition and metabolism is important, as new feeds, additives, or even new management approaches come up very often, and new scenarios will impact protein and energy metabolism, the ruminal microbiota, and also strategies to modulate ruminal fermentation to improve health and performance of feedlot cattle. Overall, the main goal of this Research Topic is to contribute with recent advances in feedlot cattle nutrition and metabolism, addressing studies related to the nutrition of high-performing ruminants, with a special emphasis on the feed efficiency, ruminal fermentation and animal performance. Furthermore, we are interested in different aspects of sustainability and efficiency. In other words, the goal is to attract studies that address such issues, both from a general perspective and in relation to specific domains. Hence, the integration of existing and current knowledge will help refine strategies to optimize the performance of feedlot cattle.