Stocking rate has no confounding effect on the use of internal and inert markers to predict botanical composition, diet quality, degradability and passage rate kinetics in sheep

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dc.contributor.author Pepeta, Bulelani Nangamso
dc.contributor.author Moyo, Mehluli
dc.contributor.author Hassen, Abubeker
dc.contributor.author Nsahlai, Ignatius Verla
dc.date.accessioned 2021-02-18T13:38:07Z
dc.date.available 2021-02-18T13:38:07Z
dc.date.issued 2020-12
dc.description.abstract This study investigated if there is any confounding effect of stocking rate on the use of internal markers to determine and predict the dietary ingredient composition, dry matter intake (DMI) and digestibility of diets consumed by sheep. Fifteen sheep were randomly allocated to stocking rate treatments of one (SR1), two (SR2), four (SR4) and eight (SR8) sheep per pen (space allowance: 31.04 m2 , 15.52 m2 , 7.76 m2 and 3.88 m2 per sheep, respectively) and fed ad libitum maize stover, sorghum stover and veld hay by supplying 110% of previous day’s intake. Sheep were rotated across the treatments in four periods of 10 days. The proportion of feeds selected and total DMI were similar across all stocking rate treatments. However, diets selected by sheep in SR2 had the highest digestibility compared to other treatments. The prediction of the effective degradability of dry matter using acid detergent fibre content achieved an accuracy of 84.6%. A combination of crude protein and neutral detergent fibre contents achieved 63% accuracy in the prediction of the rate of degradation of feeds. The use of acid insoluble ash (AIA) as an internal marker to predict nutrient intake, digestibility, DMI and dietary ingredient intake accounted for 84.3%, 81.2%, 53.0% and 64.1% of the variation, respectively. The predictions of dietary feed proportions and nutrient quality selected obtained with least squares procedure using a combination of modified acid detergent fibre (MADF), acid detergent lignin (ADL) and AIA accounted for 81.0% and 72.4% of the variation, respectively. In conclusion, regardless of the different stocking rate tested in this study, a combination of MADF, ADL and AIA as internal markers can be used to estimate diet and nutrient selection by sheep using the least squares procedure. Hence, these markers can be used to predict ingredient composition of diet, diet and nutrient selection, nutrient intake and digestibility in free ranging animals. en_ZA
dc.description.department Animal and Wildlife Sciences en_ZA
dc.description.librarian pm2021 en_ZA
dc.description.sponsorship The National Research Foundation of the Republic of South Africa en_ZA
dc.description.uri http://www.mdpi.com/journal/animals en_ZA
dc.identifier.citation Pepeta, B.N., Moyo, M., Hassen, A. & Nsahlai, I.V. 2020, 'Stocking rate has no confounding effect on the use of internal and inert markers to predict botanical composition, diet quality, degradability and passage rate kinetics in sheep', Animals, vol. 10, no. 12, art. 2232, pp, 1-21. en_ZA
dc.identifier.issn 2076-2615 (online)
dc.identifier.other 10.3390/ani10122232
dc.identifier.uri http://hdl.handle.net/2263/78762
dc.language.iso en en_ZA
dc.publisher MDPI en_ZA
dc.rights © 2020 by the authors. Licensee: MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). en_ZA
dc.subject Acid insoluble ash en_ZA
dc.subject Degradability en_ZA
dc.subject Diet selection en_ZA
dc.subject Faecal recovery en_ZA
dc.subject Predict en_ZA
dc.subject Stocking rate en_ZA
dc.subject Sheep en_ZA
dc.subject Internal markers en_ZA
dc.subject Digestibility of diets en_ZA
dc.subject Dry matter intake (DMI) en_ZA
dc.title Stocking rate has no confounding effect on the use of internal and inert markers to predict botanical composition, diet quality, degradability and passage rate kinetics in sheep en_ZA
dc.type Article en_ZA


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