Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jn8rn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T19:09:15.210Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The voluntary intake of roughages by steers

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 October 1962

K. L. Blaxter  and
R. S. Wilson
K. L. Blaxter
Affiliation:
The Hannah Dairy Research Institute, Ayr
R. S. Wilson
Affiliation:
The Hannah Dairy Research Institute, Ayr
Get access

Extract

1. Four roughages were given ad lib. to each of eight steers. The amount consumed and the apparent digestibility of the energy of each roughage were determined together with the weight gains of the steers.

2. The mean voluntary intake of dry matter was related to the mean apparent digestibility of the energy of the roughages in the same quantitative way for the steers as had been noted with sheep. Mean weight gains were proportional to the mean number of calories of energy apparently digested.

3. Significant differences between individuals occurred in their voluntary food intakes, and those animals which consumed most digested it least efficiently. The variation in intake from individual to individual expressed as a standard deviation was ±7·5% of the mean.

4. The quantitative similarity of sheep and cattle as far as the relationship between their voluntary consumption of food of different apparent digestibility is concerned, is contrasted with their dissimilarity with respect to fasting metabolism. It is suggested that sheep are likely to prove more efficient convertors of the energy of roughages to body gain than are cattle.

Further work is clearly necessary to explore the extent of these differences.

Type
Research Article
Information
Animal Production , Volume 4 , Issue 3 , October 1962 , pp. 351 - 358
Copyright
Copyright © British Society of Animal Science 1962

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Blaxter, K. L., 1950. The protein and energy nutrition of the young calf. Agric. Progr., 25: 1.Google Scholar
Blaxter, K. L., 1950–1951. Energy feeding standards for dairy cattle. Nutr. Abstr. Rev., 20: 1.Google Scholar
Blaxter, K. L., 1961. The utilisation of the energy of food. Proc. 2nd Symposium on Energy Metabolism. E.A.A.P. Publ. (In the press).Google Scholar
Blaxter, K. L., Graham, N. MCC, & Wainman, F. W., 1956. Some observations on the digestibility of food by sheep and related problems. Brit. J. Nutr., 10: 69.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Blaxter, K. L., & Wainman, F. W., 1961. The utilization of food by sheep and cattle. J. agric. Sci., 53: 419.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blaxter, K. L., Wainman, F. W., & Wilson, R. S., 1961. The regulation of food intake by sheep. Anim. Prod., 3: 51.Google Scholar
Brody, S., 1945. Bioenergetics and Growth. Reinhold, New York.Google Scholar
Graham, N. MCC, Armstrong, D. G., & BLAXTER, K. L., 1958. Analytical and other techniques used in respiration calorimetry and their errors. Proc. 1st Symposium on Energy Metabolism. E.A.A.P. Publ. No. 8, p. 157.Google Scholar
Kleiber, M., 1961. The Fire of Life. J. Wiley, London.Google Scholar