mycotoxins are natural secondary fungal metabolites produced on agricultural commodities. mould and mycotoxin contamination may occur before harvesting, between harvesting and drying, and during storage. fao has estimated that approximately 25% of the world’s crops are contaminated by molds and affected by mycotoxins, and the estimated loss extends to billions of dollars. since fungi have a wid...

The ability of dairy cows to convert feedstuffs into products for human consumption is generally referred to as feed efficiency and is expressed as pounds of milk produced per pound of dry matter consumed. This expression represents a gross measure of feed efficiency and does not account for nutrients partitioned to reproduction, growth, and tissue deposition; thus interpretation of the value o...

Kaiser and Shaver (2006) and Bucholtz (2006) reported starch concentrations in diets fed to high-producing dairy herds ranged from 25 to 30 % on a dry matter (DM) basis. Increased corn prices have heightened the interest in feeding reducedstarch diets. Results from short-term dairy cattle feeding trials suggest that reducedstarch diets formulated by partially replacing corn grain with high-fibe...

The history of evaluation of the nutritive value of feedstuffs is reviewed, leading into a description of the development of the artificial fibre bag technique. me type of material and construction of the bag are described in detail and preparation of the samples and incubation times are also discussed. Applications of the technique to a study of the rumen processess; degradation of protein sup...