The digestibility of summer growing grasses estimated by three techniques

Abstract

Ten ruminally fistulated steers were used in pen trials at Grafton, New South Wales, to estimate the digestibility (OMD) of five summer growing grasses from January to March. A nylon bag technique was used to estimate the OMD on cut and oesophageal extrusa samples of the grasses, and the accuracy of the technique was assessed. These estimates were compared with those from the in vitro technique. The mean OMD's of the grasses were generally less than 65 per cent. The nylon bag and in vitro techniques estimated the OMD with low precision. It was concluded that the techniques used did not accurately estimate the OMD of the grasses examined.