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Evaluation and mining the applicable methods of roughage digestibility determination for buffalo (Bubalus bubalis)

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Abstract

Buffalo is an amazing ruminant with high tolerance to low-quality roughage. Due to the special breeding environment, there are few reports on the digestibility of roughage in buffalo because it is difficult to quantify ingestion and egestion. To find more applicable method to determine the digestibility of low-quality roughage in buffalo, this study was conducted to compare total feces collection (TFC) method with the following three indirect techniques: Cr2O3 (chromic oxide), AIA (acid-insoluble ash), and ADL (acid detergent lignin), to determine rice straw digestibility in buffalo. Six non-pregnant, non-lactating female buffaloes were used in this experiment and the nutritional compositions of the rice straw and feces were measured. Using Cr2O3 and AIA methods, the digestibility of dry matter (DM), ash, organic matter (OM), nitrogen free extract (NFE), crude protein (CP), ether extract (EE), crude fiber (CF), neutral detergent fiber (NDF), acid detergent fiber (ADF), cellulose (CEL), hemicellulose (HC), and ADL did not have statistically significant differences compared with TFC (P > 0.05). However, the digestibility of DM, ash, OM, NFE, EE, CF, NDF, ADF, and ADL determined using ADL method were significantly lower than those using the TFC (P < 0.05). The feces recovery of Cr2O3 and AIA was 95.89% and 97.14%, which were higher than that of ADL (88.90%). In summary, compare with ADL method, TFC, Cr2O3, and AIA methods are more accurate to determine the roughage digestibility of buffalo. Furthermore, Cr2O3 and AIA methods are applicable and convenient to evaluate the roughage digestibility of buffalo under extensive feeding system.

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Acknowledgments

Thanks for Professor Xianghua Yan’s assistance in the experimental design of this paper.

Funding

This article is financially supported by the National Key Research and Development Program (2018YFD0501605 and 2017YFD0501701) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (2662016PY052, 2662016QD038 and 2662018PY037).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Agricultural Animal Genetics, Breeding and Reproduction of Ministry of Education, College of Animal Science and Technology, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, 430070, People’s Republic of China

    Zhen Wang, Yong Wu, Liujie Shi, Luncheng Cui, Xiang Li, Changjiu He, Liguo Yang & Xiang Li

  2. Hubei Province’s Engineering Research Center in Buffalo Breeding & Products, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, 430070, People’s Republic of China

    Changjiu He, Liguo Yang & Xiang Li

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  1. Zhen Wang
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  2. Yong Wu
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Contributions

Yong Wu, Liguo Yang, and Xiang Li conceived and designed the study; Yong Wu and Liujie Shi extracted the data; Zhen Wang, Yong Wu, and Luncheng Cui analyzed the data; Zhen Wang and Xiang Li wrote the manuscript; and Zhen Wang, Luncheng Cui, Liujie Shi, Xiang Li, Changjiu He, and Xiang Li revised the paper.

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Correspondence to Xiang Li.

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The experimental design of the feeding and digestibility trials was approved by Laboratory Animal Use and Care Committee in Hubei Science and Technology Agency. This experiment is in line with national regulations regarding animal welfare ethics. Ethical approval number is HZAUBU-2015-005.

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Wang, Z., Wu, Y., Shi, L. et al. Evaluation and mining the applicable methods of roughage digestibility determination for buffalo (Bubalus bubalis). Trop Anim Health Prod 52, 2639–2646 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11250-020-02292-9

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