Elsevier

Small Ruminant Research

Volume 8, Issue 3, August 1992, Pages 265-268
Small Ruminant Research

Technical note
Intake and digestibility of oats (Avena sativa) and berseem (Trifolium alexandrinum) in adult blackbuck (Antilope cervicapra)

https://doi.org/10.1016/0921-4488(92)90047-8Get rights and content

Abstract

Nutritive value of two fodders, oats (Avena sativa) and berseem (Trafolium alexandrinum) in the vegetative stage was evaluated for captive blackbuck (Antilope cervicapra). Each fodder was fed ad libitum to three adult male blackbucks, housed individually in wire fence enclosures. After a 4-week adaptation period, a 6-day digestion trial was conducted. Mean DM intake of oats and berseem was 2.2 and 3.5 kg/100 kg BW, or 50.3 and 81.7 g/kg metabolic BW, respectively. Mean digestibility of DM and various organic nutrients was greater for berseem than for oat fodder. Mean digestible CP and TDN in oats were 9.9 and 69.2%, in berseem 14.7 and 71.1% DM, respectively. Both fodders were palatable and nutritious for captive blackbucks.

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    However, further evidence from digestive physiology is still missing. Various feeding studies have been performed with blackbuck (Pathak et al., 1992; Garg et al., 2002; Das et al., 2012), but patterns of digesta passage such as the ratio of the mean retention time of small particles and solute/fluid in the gut (MRTparticle/MRTsolute, the ‘selectivity factor’ SF) have not been quantified in this species to date. Such traits have been linked to ruminant feeding types (Hummel et al., 2005; Clauss et al., 2006), and more recently have been used to characterise two prototypes of reticulorumen (RR) physiology: the ‘moose-type’ with a comparatively low, and the ‘cattle-type’ with a relatively high ruminal fluid throughput (Clauss et al., 2010b).

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