Practical Approach to Calculation of Gastrointestinal Tract Fill

Open Access
Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Total gastrointestinal tract fill and rumen fill are considered important in the regulation of food intake in ruminants on particular diets. One difficulty with the measurement of rumen fill is that rumen-fistulated animals must be used. Total gastrointestinal tract fill can be estimated on intact animals. To find the weight of dry matter in the digestive tract at a particular time, it is necessary to sum all previous intakes of food, each being weighted by a) the fraction of the meal still in the tract, and b) the fraction of the meal that has not been digested. A simplified method for estimating fill from intake, rate of passage, and digestibility measures is presented. It was found that data obtained with this method agreed closely with other published data.

This publication has 3 references indexed in Scilit: