The role of the gastrointestinal tract (GIT) in explaining the less efficient utilization of metabolizable energy (ME) in growing lambs fed forage rather than concentrate-based diets was investigated by feeding forage (legume-grass silage) and concentrate (whole shelled maize) diets, at isoenergetic intakes (ME basis), using five groups of lambs. One group of seven lambs was an initial slaughte...

F ROM time to time during the past several years, reports have filtered into the College of an unhealthy condition of cattle in the northern counties of New York State which clearly could not be diagnosed as de, ficiencies of phosphorus, calcium or a lack of total feed. As information concerning cobalt deficiency became more abundant, many points of similarity were recognized batween the sympto...

Microbial colonization is central to ruminal degradation of dietary material yet little is known about the dynamics of this process. The aim of this study was to characterize the initial stages of bacterial colonization of forage, and to assess the impact that different postsample processing and analysis methods had on the results obtained. Bacterial 16S rRNA gene-based analysis of damaged, non...

Five Angus x Hereford steers with ruminal and duodenal fistulas were used in a 5 x 5 Latin square to determine effects of increasing the proportion of urea in supplemental degradable intake protein (DIP) on intake, fermentation, and digestion. Steers had ad libitum access to low-quality, tallgrass-prairie forage (2.4% CP, 76% NDF). Supplemental DIP (380 g/d) was from sodium caseinate and(or) ur...

Understanding the nutritional dynamics of herbivores living in highly seasonal landscapes remains a central challenge in foraging ecology with few tools available for describing variation in selection for dormant versus growing vegetation. Here, we tested whether the concentrations of photosynthetic pigments (chlorophylls and carotenoids) in forage and feces of elk (Cervus elaphus L., 1785) wer...

Suwarno, Wittenberg, K. M., Ingalls, J. R. and McCaughey, W. P. 2000. Performance of lactating dairy cows fed macerated forage conserved as silage and hay. Can. J. Anim. Sci. 80: 123–129. The effect of forage maceration at harvest on silage characteristics and its effect on lactation performance of Holstein cows were determined. Either a roller conditioner or a prototype forage macerator manufa...

BACKGROUND Current plant--herbivore interaction models and experiments with mammalian herbivores grazing plant monocultures show the superiority of a maximizing forage quality strategy (MFQ) over a maximizing intake strategy (MI). However, there is a lack of evidence whether grazers comply with the model predictions under field conditions. METHODOLOGY/FINDINGS We assessed diet selection of sh...

take potential (Van Soest, 1994). The concentration of NDF is heritable in several forage species, and rates of gain Voluntary intake is generally considered to be the single most from selection for reduced NDF concentration of herbimportant factor limiting animal performance on high-forage diets. Neutral detergent fiber (NDF) is the laboratory variable most closely age are reported to be as hi...

Forage age and maturity generally have a larger influence on forage quality than environmental factors. Plant environment, however, cause deviations in forage quality even when harvested at the same maturity. Temperature usually has greater influence on forage quality than other environmental factors. Although increasing temperature normally hastens maturity, the primary effect may be through i...

A control group of 6 rabbits (Group A) received forage from uncontaminated areas. Two other groups (B and C) of 6 and 8 rabbi ts, 'respectively, were fed forage grown near Chizzola exclusively. Seventy days after the beginning of the experiment, the S rabbits of Group C were given forage artificially polluted with material obtained from the purifying equipment of the factory after it had been t...