A Critical Study of Energy Determination in Fresh and Dried Cow Feces

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Abstract
A method is described in detail to determine energy in fresh cattle feces by using dimethylformamid as a primer. The energy content of 8 samples of cow feces determined in fresh, oven-dried and freeze dried aliquots was compared after calculating them to a comparable basis using the results of 3 different water determination methods. These were oven drying at 80[degree]C, the toluene distillation method and freeze drying. The difference in energy content in dried feces and fresh feces using the most reliable methods of water determination, freeze drying and toluene distillation was less than 2%. An exact comparison in this way is not possible because there is no water determination method in general use which does not exclude ammonia or other volatile organic material from being measured as water. This leads to an overestimation of the energy content of fresh feces after calculation to a comparable basis.

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