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Use of Fresh or Frozen Cow Faeces Instead of Sheep Rumen Liquor to Provide Mocroorganisms for in Vitro Digestiblity Assays of Forages

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 November 2017

S Akhter ,
E Owen ,
A Fall ,
F O'Donovan  and
M K Theodorou
S Akhter
Affiliation:
department of Agriculture, University of Reading, Earley Gate, PO Box 236, Reading, Berks RG6 2AT
E Owen
Affiliation:
department of Agriculture, University of Reading, Earley Gate, PO Box 236, Reading, Berks RG6 2AT
A Fall
Affiliation:
department of Agriculture, University of Reading, Earley Gate, PO Box 236, Reading, Berks RG6 2AT
F O'Donovan
Affiliation:
department of Agriculture, University of Reading, Earley Gate, PO Box 236, Reading, Berks RG6 2AT
M K Theodorou
Affiliation:
AFRC Institute of Grassland and Environmental Research, Plas Gogerddan, Aberystwyth, Dyfed SY23 3EB
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Extract

Current techniques for in vitro digestion of forages depend on the use of rumen fistulated animals to supply microbial suspensions in rumen liquor. The objective of the present study is to develop a noninvasive alternative to rumen liquor as a source of micro-organisms in the two-stage, in vitro digestion technique of Tilley and Terry (1963).

EL Shaer, Omed, Chamberlain and Axford (1987) showed a high correlation between digestibility in vitro determined using micro-organisms from rumen liquor and from freshly-voided sheep faeces. The disadvantages of using sheep faeces are (a) the need for fresh faeces, (b) the small quantities voided at any given time and (c) the difficulty of enticing sheep to defaecate at a specific time.

Cow faeces as a source of micro-organisms was investigated in the present study because of the ease of collecting a large quantity of freshly-voided faeces at a given time. Another objective of the present study was to investigate whether faeces could be frozen and stored for future use as a source of micro-organisms for the in vitro digestibility assay. A further objective was to investigate whether rumen liquor could be frozen and stored for future use.

Type
Ruminant Nutrition and Digestion
Information
Proceedings of the British Society of Animal Production (1972) , Volume 1994 , March 1994 , pp. 100
Copyright
Copyright © The British Society of Animal Production 1994

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References

El Shaer, H.M., Omed, H.M., Chamberlain, A.G. and Axford, R.F.E. 1987. Use of faecal organisms from sheep for the in vitro determination of digestibility. Journal of Agricultural Science, Cambridge 109: 257–259.Google Scholar
Tilley, J.M.A. and Terry, R.A. 1963. A two stage technique for in vitro digestion of forage crops. Journal of the British Grassland Societv 18: 104–111 CrossRefGoogle Scholar