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A Review of Techniques used to Estimate the In Vivo Digestibility of Grazed Forage¹

Colorado State University, Fort Collins

Abstract

The digestibility of harvested forage can be determined directly by the so-called "conventional method" (Kennedy and Dinsmore, 1909; Christensen and Hopper, 1932; Briggs, Galiup and Darlow, 1948). Confined animals are fed the forage for several days and measurements are made of feed consumption and fecal production. Digestibility is calculated by subtracting the total amount of feces excreted from the total amount of forage fed and dividing the remainder by either the amount of forage fed or the amount consumed depending on the purpose of the experiment (Lindahl, 1960).

The digestibility of grazed forage cannot be determined directly because intake cannot be measured. Direct measurements of the digestibility of herbage harvested from pastures and hand fed to confined animals does not necessarily evaluate the forage consumed by animals grazing the same pasture because the latter are free to select specific plant parts and plant species (Hardison et al., 1954; Weir and Torell, 1959; Ridley et al., 1963).

¹ Published with the approval of the Director as Paper No. 255O Journal Series, Nebraska Agricultural Experiment Station.

² D. C. Clan ton and P. J. Van Soest are gratefully acknowledged for their review of the manuscript.