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The Quantitative Relationship between Total Digestible Nutrients and Digestible Energy Values of Forages¹

New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station, New Brunswick

Abstract

There is a close relationship between the two methods of feed evaluation: the digestible energy (DE) method, and the total digestible nutrients (TDN) method. Since both TDN and DE are based on a feed-feces difference, they essentially evaluate feedstuffs to the same degree of availability to the animal body. Swift (1957a), Macdonald (1957), Markley et al. (1959), and Barth et al. (1959) all reported high correlation between the two methods. Since, however, the TDN method is, time-consuming, empirical, and indirect in approach, use of the DE method is becoming common. For example, the National Research Council includes the DE method in its requirements for dairy cattle, and the Northeast Regional project (NE-24) adopted it for the comparison of the nutritive value of forages. In any change from the TDN to the DE system, however, some method must be found to convert the voluminous TDN data already in existence to DE values.

¹ Paper of the Journal Series, New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station, Rutgers University, the State University of New Jersey, Department of Animal Husbandry, New Brunswick.

² Present address: Department of Agricultural Biochemistry, University of West Virginia, Morgantown, West Virginia.

³ Acknowledgment is made to Prof. J. G. Archibald, University of Massachusetts; Dr. W. W. G. Smart, Jr., North Carolina State College; and Dr. D. C. Church, Oregon State College, for their contribution of digestion study data.