Dry Matter Intake and In Vivo Digestibility of Grass-Only and Grass-White Clover in Individually Housed Sheep in Spring, Summer and Autumn

Dry Matter Intake and In Vivo Digestibility of Grass-Only and Grass-White Clover in Individually Housed Sheep in Spring, Summer and Autumn

Intake and digestibility are key drivers of animal production from grazed forage. The objective of this study was to compare the in vivo digestibility and voluntary dry matter (DM) intake of grass-only and grass-white clover (grass-clover) forage in individually housed sheep. This study was a Latin...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Animals (Basel) Vol. 11; no. 2; p. 306
Main Authors: Hurley, MaryAnne, Lewis, Eva, Beecher, Marion, Garry, Brian, Fleming, Christina, Boland, Tommy, Hennessy, Deirdre
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Switzerland MDPI AG 26-01-2021
MDPI
Subjects:
Adaptation
Animal production
Animals
Autumn
Clover
Dairy cattle
Digestibility
Dry matter
Experiments
Feeds
Grasses
In vivo methods and tests
Lolium perenne
Metabolism
Milk production
Nitrogen
Organic matter
Plant growth
Proteins
season
Seasons
Sheep
Spring (season)
Summer
Trifolium repens
United Kingdom > UK
Ireland
season
Lolium perenne
digestibility
Trifolium repens
sheep
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Summary:Intake and digestibility are key drivers of animal production from grazed forage. The objective of this study was to compare the in vivo digestibility and voluntary dry matter (DM) intake of grass-only and grass-white clover (grass-clover) forage in individually housed sheep. This study was a Latin square design, repeated on three occasions in 2017: Spring (27 March-29 April), summer (19 June-22 July) and autumn (4 September-29 September). Grass-clover and grass-only swards were harvested daily and offered to 6 individually housed wether sheep per treatment per period. Digestibility of DM, organic matter (OM), neutral detergent fibre (NDF) and acid detergent fibre (ADF) were determined using the total faecal collection method. Dry matter intake was not significantly different between treatments. White clover inclusion increased forage crude protein concentration in autumn ( < 0.001) and reduced NDF concentration in the offered forage ( < 0.001), increasing nitrogen intake per sheep in autumn ( < 0.001) and decreasing NDF intake per sheep in autumn ( < 0.001). Grass-clover swards had a significantly greater OM and DM digestibility compared to grass-only swards ( < 0.05). This could potentially result in increased animal production from grass-clover swards compared to grass-only swards.
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ISSN:2076-2615
2076-2615
DOI:10.3390/ani11020306