This review deals with the most relevant limits and developments of the modeling of intake of sheep and goats reared intensively and extensively. Because small ruminants are normally fed ad libitum, voluntary feed intake is crucial in feeding tactics and strategies aimed at optimal animal production. The effects of genetic, neuroendocrine, hormonal, feed and environmental factors on voluntary f...

Rumen fill may be a strong intake constraint for dairy cows fed on pasture, even though pasture is highly digestible in the grasslands of temperate climates. This constraint may also depend on the cows' maturity. Moreover, indoor feeding of fresh herbage may not always be a good model for the study of intake regulation at grazing. To test these hypotheses, four mature (6.3 ± 0.72 year old) and ...

Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) associated with average daily gain (ADG) and dry matter intake (DMI), two major components of feed efficiency in cattle, were identified in a genome-wide association study (GWAS). Uni- and multi-SNP models were used to describe feed efficiency in a training data set and the results were confirmed in a validation data set. Results from the univariate and bi...

This study aimed to determine the effect of dietary supplementation inulin on growth performance, feed conversion and nutrient digestibility in Barbari goats fed high low concentrate diet for a period 90 days. Twenty four yearling female were randomly divided into equal groups (n=6) according average body weight (18.24±1.16 kg). Treated animals Group 1 (LCD; roughage ratio 40:60) 2 (LCIN) with ...

We conducted two experiments to determine the feeding value and effects on diet digestibilities, passage rates, and ruminal metabolism of wheat middlings (WM) fed as a replacement for either the concentrate or roughage components of finishing diets of steers. In Exp. 1, 120 medium-framed steers were blocked by weight and randomly allocated to one of six treatments of high-concentrate diets: con...

An experiment was conducted to determine the effects of diets containing coarse-texture rice straw and small particle size alfalfa pellets as a part of total mixed ration (TMR) on milk productivity and chewing activity in lactating dairy cows. Sixteen multiparous Holstein dairy cows (670±21 kg body weight) in mid-lactation (194.1±13.6 days in milk) were randomly assigned to TMR containing 50% o...

the objective of this study was to test whether the stimuli of osmotic pressure (op), vfa or ph in the omasum would affect the passage of digesta from the rumen and feed intake in sheep. five experements were carried out. different solutions with specific, op, vfa concentration and ph were infused into the omasal body. rumen digesta volumes and outflow rates (liquid and solid) were measured by ...

Twenty-four lactating Holstein dairy cows were used in a completely randomized design to investigate the effect of soybean meal (SM) and xylose protected soybean meal (XSM) in combination with ground (GB) or steam flaked (FB) barley on dry matter intake, milk production, rumen fermentation and blood responses. The experimental period lasted for 30 days. The diets consisted of the provision of 1...