Influence of replacing brewers' grains with green tea [Camellia sinensis] grounds on feed intake, digestibility and ruminal fermentation characteristics of wethers
2008
Xu, C.(China Agricultural Univ., Beijing) | Cai, Y. | Moriya, N. | Eruden, B. | Hosoda, K. | Matsuyama, H.
An experiment was conducted to examine feed intake, apparent digestibility, nitrogen balance, ruminal fermentation and blood components of wethers fed diets containing increasing levels of wet green tea grounds (WGTG). The experimental design was a 4 x 4 Latin square with four wethers in four 15-day periods. Wethers were allowed access to diets ad libitum, and allotted to one of four treatments in which WGTG replaced 0% (no WGTG added, CTG), 5% (low level, LBG), 10%(medium level, MTG), and 15% (high level, HTG) of total mixed ration (TMR) dry matter (DM) as wet brewers grains (WBG). All TMR silages were ensiled for 120 days and, irrespective of the WGTG addition, they were well preserved with a high lactic acid content, low pH and ammonia-N contents. There were no differences among treatments in feed intake, with the exception of ether extract intake (P=0.032). Digestibilities for LTG and MTG treatments were not different from CTG. However, the organic matter, crude protein, acid detergent fiber and energy digestibilities for HTG treatment were lower than the CTG (P0.05). As the level of WGTG increased, nitrogen intake did not differ, but fecal nitrogen increased (P
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