FURTHER STUDIES CONCERNING THE EFFECT OF ALFALFA ASH UPON THE UTILIZATION OF LOW-QUALITY ROUGHAGES BY RUMINANT ANIMALS

Open Access
Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Many workers (Burroughs et al., 1948; Swift et al., 1951; Chappel, 1952; Tillman et al., 1954a) have reported that alfalfa ash increased the digestibility and utilization by ruminants of rations containing ground corn cobs or cottonseed hulls. Brooks et al. 1954 reported that the addition of corn oil to sheep rations containing cottonseed hulls resulted in decreased digestibility of ration components and that this effect was counteracted by the addition of alfalfa ash, indicating that in many of the earlier works alfalfa ash may have exerted its beneficial effects by counteracting the detrimental effects of fat. The work reported herein was initiated to study the effect of added fats with and without alfalfa ash on the digestibility and utilization by cattle and sheep of rations containing ground corn cobs or cottonseed hulls.