Influence of duration of exposure to field conditions on viability of fecal samples for NIRS analysis

Abstract

This experiment was conducted to address the issue of spectral integrity of pelleted feces exposed to environmental conditions at different times of the year in near infrared reflectance spectroscopy analysis using goats as the representative herbivore. Both dietary crude protein and digestible organic matter were predicted. Results indicated that fecal samples collected with up to 7 days of exposure provided similar estimates of diet crude protein and digestible organic matter from samples collected immediately after defecation Goat feces response to environmental conditions provided useful information as to how collection of many wild herbivores' fecal material could be efficiently sampled for future near infrared reflectance spectroscopy analyses.