The mobile bag technique as a method for determining the degradation of four botanically diverse fibrous feedstuffs in the small intestine and total digestive tract of ponies.

This research paper investigates the breakdown rate and levels of four diverse fibrous feeds in ponies’ digestive tracts, using a mobile bag technique. The study found that sugar-beet pulp and soyabean hulls are rapidly broken down by ponies, making them possible alternatives to hay. However, sugar-beet pulp has a poor availability of crude protein.

Objective of the Research

• The research aims to determine the degradation rate and extent of four different types of fibrous feedstuffs (unmolassed sugar-beet pulp, soyabean hulls, hay cubes, and an oat hull-naked oats mixture) in the foregut (beginning of the digestive tract) and the entire digestive tract of ponies.

Study Approach

• An in sacco mobile bag technique was utilized in the study. Polyester mesh bags, each holding 350mg feed, were administered naso-gastrically (through the nose and the throat) to ponies.
• The test was conducted following a Latin square design (a statistical design for experiments) and the bags were collected at the small intestine and the faeces to analyze their residue.

Findings

• The study found significant differences in the losses of dry matter (DM), organic matter, and crude protein from the Small intestine bags (SIB) among the different feeds, with hay cubes and oat hulls-naked oats mixture experiencing more losses than sugar-beet pulp and soyabean hulls.
• On the contrary, there were significant differences in losses from Faecal bags (FB) for all the constituents examined. Sugar-beet pulp showed the highest losses, followed by soyabean hulls, hay cubes, and oat hull-naked oats respectively.
• Acid-detergent fibre, neutral-detergent fibre, and non-starch polysaccharides (NSP) disappearances were small and showed little variation between feeds.
• Crude protein losses from sugar-beet pulp and soyabean hulls in FB were significantly higher than those from SIB. Bag residence time affected FB degradation, with sugar-beet pulp showing the highest degradation followed by soyabean hulls.
• The effective degradability showed that significantly more sugar-beet pulp was lost at 40.0 and 60.0 hours than the other three feeds.

Relevance of the Findings

• These outcomes suggest that sugar-beet pulp and soyabean hulls get degraded quickly by ponies and could serve as alternatives to hay in horse diets. However, the availability of crude protein from sugar-beet pulp is poor, hence, diets based on sugar-beet pulp should be supplemented with a readily digestible source of crude protein for animals with high protein demands.