Technical Note: Physical factors that influence fecal analysis estimates of herbivore diets
Issue Date
1995-05-01Keywords
Acacia salignaVicia sativa
correction factors
Chloris gayana
rumen contents
equations
feces composition
diet
beef cows
Metadata
Show full item recordCitation
Bartolomé, J., Franch, J., Gutman, M., & Seligman, N. G. (1995). Technical note: Physical factors that influence fecal analysis estimates of herbivore diets. Journal of Range Management, 48(3), 267-270.Publisher
Society for Range ManagementJournal
Journal of Range ManagementDOI
10.2307/4002432Additional Links
https://rangelands.org/Abstract
Microhistological analysis of epidermal fragments in feces is often used to estimate the diet of herbivores but is not generally accepted as a consistently reliable method. Gross errors arise, especially when diets are composed of herbage components with widely different morphological and structural characteristics. The present study investigated the possibility of using such physical characteristics to improve the reliability of the method. Over a 7 day period, 4 rumen-fistulated beef cows were given a fixed diet composed of a shrub, a grass, and a forb component. On the last 2 days, samples of rumen content and feces were taken for analysis of epidermal fragment. Forbs were under-estimated, grasses over-estimated, and shrubs correctly estimated. Correction factors to estimate true diet composition were defined as the biomass represented by the specific epidermal fragments (epidermal weight index) and the degree of degradation to which the epidermis is subjected in the digestion process (epidermal erodibility factor). These factors account for characteristic physical features of the different dietary components and were measured directly or were derived from the calibration experiment. The utility of such factors depends on accurate determination of the component variables and may be overshadowed by sampling error and observer bias in the microhistological identification of epidermal fragments.Type
textArticle
Language
enISSN
0022-409Xae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.2307/4002432