Ruminal degradability In Situ of nutritive components of some

Abstract

Degradability "in situ" of dry matter (DM), organic matter (OM), crude protein (CP), neutral detergent fiber (NDF) and acid detergent fiber (ADF) of whole cotton seed (WCS), soybean meal (SM), sunflower seed (SS), turnip cake (TC) and ground corn (GC) were determined with incubation of nylon bags in the rumen of five steers ½ Simmental-Zebu. The effective degradability (ED) of dry matter and crude protein with 5%/h of passage rate were respectively 40,93 and 48,95% for cotton seed; 67,35 and 53,20% for soybean meal; 63,38 and 72,50% for sunflower seed; 66,59 and 57,82% for turnip cake and 3,65 e 54,18% for ground corn. Through the fermentation rates of the different nutritious components determined on this experiment it was concluded that turnip cake has a potential to substitute soybean meal as a protein source in ruminant feeding; sunflower seed presents a high soluble fraction of crude protein and the cotton seed ether extract may affect negatively the degradation of dry matter and organic matter of this feed, specially when provided ground to the animals.