Publication Date
1989
Description
The nutrition of grazing animals is difficult to assess because of the difficulty in determining the amount and quality of the ingested forage. Although many techniques have been proposed for sampling the grazed forage, none offer quantitative estimates of diet quality and intake for individual animals in large numbers. The feces excreted by animals contain undigested residues of the diet consumed along with products of animal and microbiological origin. The objective was to determine if near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) could be used to developed spectral indices from feces which describe the quantitative and qualitative attributes of the diet over a range of conditions.
Citation
Coleman, S W.; Stuth, J W.; and Holloway, J W., "Monitoring the Nutrition of Grazing Cattle with Near-Infrared Analysis of Feces" (2025). IGC Proceedings (1989-2023). 63.
https://uknowledge.uky.edu/igc/1989/session7/63
Included in
Agricultural Science Commons, Agronomy and Crop Sciences Commons, Plant Biology Commons, Plant Pathology Commons, Soil Science Commons, Weed Science Commons
Monitoring the Nutrition of Grazing Cattle with Near-Infrared Analysis of Feces
The nutrition of grazing animals is difficult to assess because of the difficulty in determining the amount and quality of the ingested forage. Although many techniques have been proposed for sampling the grazed forage, none offer quantitative estimates of diet quality and intake for individual animals in large numbers. The feces excreted by animals contain undigested residues of the diet consumed along with products of animal and microbiological origin. The objective was to determine if near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) could be used to developed spectral indices from feces which describe the quantitative and qualitative attributes of the diet over a range of conditions.
