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Prediction of ADF and NDF in faeces by NIRS to assess diet composition in grazing animals
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 November 2017
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Chemical analysis have been useful in characterising both nutrient content and digestibility of forages but less useful in predicting voluntary intake by animals (Ward et al., 1982). Faeces is the product of eroding and synthesising digestive processes and consists of residues of feed and plant tissue, component of microbial and animal origin, for this reasons faeces should contain information about the amount and characteristics of the diet. Near infrared reflectance spectroscopy (NIRS) is widely used to predict quality characteristics in forages and several reports (Lyons and Stuth, 1992; Leite and Stuth, 1995, Coates, 1999) indicated that useful prediction of dietary digestibility in grazing ruminants using faecal NIRS analysis. It is assumed for different authors that rangeland herbivore faeces contains chemical bonds resulting from undigested residues and microbial fermentation and host animal digestion end products which can provide NIRS spectral information highly correlated with dietary crude protein and digestibility (Lyons and Stuth, 1992). The objective of this work was to develop NIRS equation calibrations to estimate acid detergent fibre (ADF), neutral detergent fibre (NDF) and nitrogen in faecal samples to be used as a tool to estimate diet composition in ruminant animals under grazing conditions.
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- Copyright © The British Society of Animal Science 2002