Roughage digestion evaluation in horses with total feces collection and mobile nylon bags

Abstract

-This study aimed to evaluate the nutrient digestibility of roughages in horses with total feces collection and mobile bags. Two trials were carried out simultaneously. The first trial evaluated the digestibility of nutrients of coastcross hay (Cynodon dactylon cv. coastcross) with total feces collection. The second trial assessed the digestibility of nutrients of alfalfa hay (Medicago sativa), peanut (Arachis pintoi) and coastcross hay with mobile bags. This trial was conducted with gastric insertions of nylon bags every 12 hours, and each bag contained 663 mg of feed samples in a proportion of 17 mg DM/cm 2 .Feces and bags were collected directly from the stall floor immediately after excretion. There was no difference between the digestibility of dry matter, crude protein, carbohydrates and hydrolysable carbohydrates of coastcross hay estimated with feces collection and mobile bags. Forage peanut showed high nutrients digestibility, with values close to those observed with alfalfa, indicating potential for use in diets for horses.

Comparison of gastrointestinal transit times in stabled Thoroughbred horses fed freshly cut pasture and three conserved forage-based diets

“…horses, ponies and donkeys; Cuddeford et al 1995;Drogoul et al 2001;Pearson et al 2001), some caution is warranted when comparing the results obtained in the present study with previous investigations, the majority of which were conducted on ponies (Cuddeford et al 1995;Pearson et al 2001;Moore-Colyer et al 2003). The inconsistencies in the feed intake and passage rate of digesta reported in previous work may have been due to differences in the feeding and management of the animals used in the studies (de Fombelle et al 2004;Rodrigues et al 2012;Jensen et al 2014). A large variation in voluntary feed intake and passage rate of digesta was also observed among the horses in the present study, even though the experimental design controlled for breed, diet and management of the horses.…”

“…The transit time delay of the markers was measured as the time (h) post-administration of markers to the first appearance of a marker in the faeces (T 1 ; Moore-Colyer et al 2003;Rosenfeld et al 2006). The MRT (h) of the markers in the gastrointestinal tract for each diet was calculated by an equation previously described for particulate-phase MRT in ruminants and horses (Faichney 1975;Rodrigues et al 2012).…”