An experiment was conducted to determine intake and apparent digestibilities of Kentucky 31 tall fescue (<i>Festuca arundinacea</i> schreb.) and orchardgrass/clover (<i>Dactylus glomerata</i> L./<i>Trifolium pratense</i> L.) pastures in different seasons of the year. Three digestion trials were conducted in December, 1985 (winter), May, 1986 (spring) and August, 1986 (summer). Five horses grazed each pasture type. A double marker procedure was used with indigestible neutral detergent fiber (INDF) and Yb as internal and external markers, respectively. Apparent digestibility of dry matter (DM), crude protein (CP), acid detergent fiber (ADF) and neutral detergent fiber (NDF) were determined. Digestibility of orchardgrass/clover components were not different between winter and spring, but were higher (P<.05) in DM, ADF and NDF digestibilities in the summer. Fescue DM and ADF digestibilities were higher (P<.05) in the winter while apparent digestibility of CP was higher (P<.05) in the spring. In summer orchardgrass/clover DM, ADF and NDF digestibilities were higher (P<.05) than fescue. Dry matter intake was not significantly different between forages. Orchardgrass/clover intake was lowest (P<.05) in the winter. Fescue dry matter intake was highest (P<.05) in the summer. / Master of Science
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VTETD/oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/52057 |
| Date | January 1987 |
| Creators | Moffitt, Deborah L. |
| Contributors | Animal Science |
| Publisher | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University |
| Source Sets | Virginia Tech Theses and Dissertation |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis, Text |
| Format | vii, 53 leaves, application/pdf, application/pdf |
| Rights | In Copyright, http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ |
| Relation | OCLC# 17374820 |
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