A meta-analysis was performed to determine the influence of cereal grain type and corn grain harvesting and processing methods, dietary starch, rumen-digestible starch, and forage NDF concentrations on intake, digestion, and lactation performance by dairy cows using a data set comprising 414 treatment means from 102 peer-reviewed journal reports from 2000 to 2011. Categories for corn processing...

Calcium (Ca) and phosphorus (P) are minerals that have important physiological functions in the body. For formulation of diets for pigs, it is necessary to consider an appropriate Ca:P ratio for an adequate absorption and utilization of both minerals. Although both minerals are important, much more research has been conducted on P digestibility than on Ca digestibility. Therefore, this review f...

Calcium (Ca) and phosphorus (P) are minerals that have important physiological functions in the body. For formulation of diets for pigs, it is necessary to consider an appropriate Ca:P ratio for an adequate absorption and utilization of both minerals. Although both minerals are important, much more research has been conducted on P digestibility than on Ca digestibility. Therefore, this review f...

The objective of these studies was to determine if dietary enzymes increase the digestibility of nutrients bound by nonstarch polysaccharides, such as arabinoxylans, or phytate in wheat millrun. Effects of millrun inclusion rates (20 or 40%), xylanase (0 or 4,375 units/kg of feed), and phytase (0 or 500 phytase units/kg of feed) on nutrient digestibility and growth performance were investigated...

The objective was to assess the ability of the in situ mobile nylon bag method for predicting small intestinal and total tract starch digestibility. Starch disappearance was measured for 18 samples of different cereals and legumes subjected to different physical and chemical processing methods and compared with coherent in vivo digestibility. Starch disappearance was measured both with and with...

Five ileal-cannulated adult dogs were utilized in a 5 x 5 Latin square design to determine the effects of fructan type and concentration on nutrient digestibility, stool metabolite concentrations, and fecal microbiota. Five diets were evaluated that contained cellulose alone or with inulin or short-chain fructooligosaccharides (scFOS) each at 0.2 or 0.4% of the diet. Dogs were fed 175 g of thei...

The effect of a dietary microbial phytase on mineral digestibility throughout the gastrointestinal tract (GIT) of the growing pig was studied. Thirty-two entire male pigs (~22 kg BW) were allocated equally to 4 corn-soybean meal diets. One diet was adequate in total P and Ca, the second diet was deficient in total P and Ca (low-P diet), and the third and fourth diets were the low-P diet with mi...

There is a need in the feed industry for a rapid means of evaluating the nutritive value of feeds and feed ingredients. Chemical analysis provides only basic information and most of the laboratory techniques take too long for this information to be of use in feed formulation at the feed mill. Near infrared reflectance spectroscopy (NIRS) has been proposed as an alternative means of predicting n...

Six yearling Hereford X Angus steers (avg 272 kg), each with ruminal, duodenal and ileal cannulas were used in a 6 X 6 Latin-square metabolism trial to evaluate the impact of NaHCO3 and trona (a ground, nonrefined ore with chemical composition NaHCO3-Na2CO3-2H2O) on site and extent of digestion of nutrients in the digestive tract. The diets were 50:50 or 90:10 (cracked corn-based concentrate:co...

Two experiments were conducted to examine the effects of lupin particle size on amino acid (AA) and energy digestibility and fermentation characteristics in pigs. Expt 1 examined the effects of lupin variety (cv. Tanjil and Mandelup) and lupin particle size (746, 888, 1099 and 1136 mum) on the total-tract apparent digestibility of dietary components in 63.5 (sd 7.28) kg pigs. While variety had ...