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Technical note: A proposed method to determine the extent of degradation of a feed in the rumen from the degradation profile obtained with the in vitro gas production technique using feces as the inoculum¹

M. S. Dhanoa^*, J. France^2,, L. A. Crompton, R. M. Mauricio^,, E. Kebreab, J. A. N. Mills, R. Sanderson^*, J. Dijkstra^¶ and S. López^#

^* Institute of Grassland and Environmental Research, Plas Gogerddan, Aberystwyth, Ceredigion SY23 3EB, U.K.; and Department of Animal and Poultry Science, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario N1G 2W1, Canada; and The University of Reading, School of Agriculture, Policy and Development, Whiteknights, Reading RG6 6AR, U.K.; and Fundacao Ezequiel Dias 80, CEP 30550, Belo Horizonte MG, Brazil; and ^¶ WIAS Animal Nutrition Group, Wageningen University, 6709 PG Wageningen, The Netherlands; and and ^# Departamento de Producción Animal, Universidad de León, E-24007 León, Spain

² Correspondence—fax: 519-836-9873; e-mail: jfrance{at}uoguelph.ca.

Abstract

A method is proposed to determine the extent of degradation in the rumen involving a two-stage mathematical modeling process. In the first stage, a statistical model shifts (or maps) the gas accumulation profile obtained using a fecal inoculum to a ruminal gas profile. Then, a kinetic model determines the extent of degradation in the rumen from the shifted profile. The kinetic model is presented as a generalized mathematical function, allowing any one of a number of alternative equation forms to be selected. This method might allow the gas production technique to become an approach for determining extent of degradation in the rumen, decreasing the need for surgically modified animals while still maintaining the link with the animal. Further research is needed before the proposed methodology can be used as a standard method across a range of feeds.

Key Words: Extent of Degradation • Fecal Inoculum • Gas Production • Ruminal Inoculum

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