Abstract #T136

# T136
Ruminal and whole-tract diet digestion in calves before, during and after weaning.
Sonia L. Gelsinger*1, Wayne K. Coblentz2, Geoffrey I. Zanton2, Robin K. Ogden2, 1University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, 2United States Department of Agriculture Dairy Forage Research Center, Madison, WI.

An experiment was conducted to determine ruminal and whole-tract digestibility of 2 starter feeds in calves at 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, and 15 wk of age. Ten (n = 5/diet) bull calves were cannulated at 3 wk of age. They received milk replacer and one of 2 calf starter diets through wk 7, then starter only (up to 4500 g/hd per d) through wk 15. Diets were a complete pellet (A; 42% starch, 13% NDF) and texturized (B; 31% starch, 22% NDF). Portions of each diet were dried, ground and 1.25g was inserted into concentrate in situ bags (5 cm × 10 cm, 50µm porosity). Each calf received duplicate bags of each diet for a total of 8 bags/calf (2 diets × 2 timpoints). All bags were inserted at the time of starter feeding and removed 9 or 24 h later. This process was repeated over 3d each wk. Daily starter intake and fecal output were recorded during the same 3-d periods. Each diet, refusals, and feces were subsampled, dried, ground, composited by calf by wk and analyzed for NDF and N content. Apparent digestibility coefficients, total intake and output were calculated and submitted to the mixed procedure of SAS with P < 0.05 considered significant. In situ ruminal DM disappearance was greatest for diet A at 9 and 24h. Ruminal DM disappearance of both diets increased with age. Disappearance of DM for diet A and B after 24-h incubation increased from 79.4 and 71.7% at 5 wk to 84.3 and 77.1% at 15 wk, respectively. In situ ruminal DM disappearance after 24h tended to be greater for both diets when placed inside the rumens of calves consuming diet B (79.0 vs 77.9%; P = 0.10). Total starter intake and fecal output of DM, NDF, and N increased with time and were greater for B calves. While in situ DM disappearance increased, whole-tract starter DM digestibility changed quadratically with time: increasing from 74.7% in wk 5 to 80.7% in wk 7 and then progressively declining to 74.6% in wk 15. Whole-tract digestibility of DM and N was greater (P < 0.01) and NDF tended to be greater (P = 0.07) for A calves. This is likely due to diet formulation rather than physiological differences between groups as the consumed diet did not significantly effect in situ ruminal DM disappearance.

Key Words: calf, in situ, digestibility