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Comparison of Methods of Estimating the Digestibility of Range Forage and Browse¹

University of California, Davis 95616

Abstract

In the evaluation of grazing range it is useful to estimate the apparent digestibility of the forage being eaten by the grazing animal. However, a regular in vivo digestion trial may not be feasible because the nature of the range is such that it is not possible to obtain a large sample of representative forage. Due to mixed plant species and selective grazing it may be preferable to accept the shortcomings of ratio or in vitro techniques. These estimates may be made on diet samples obtained from esophageal fistulated animals, and/or by analysis of the feces, and several methods are available.

Methods available for digestibility estimation on diet samples include the many types of in vitro digestion, leading to apparent (Tilley and Terry, 1963; Barnes, 1967) or true (Van Soest, Wine and Moore, 1966) digestibility, and the summative equation involving the determination of the cell-wall content and the lignification of the cell walls (Van Soest, 1967).

¹ A research contribution to Regional Research Project W-94 (Range Livestock Nutrition) and work partially supported by Dry-Lands Research Institute, University of California, Riverside.

² Present address: CSIRO, Riverina Laboratory, Deniliquin, N.S.W. 2710, Australia.