A Comparison of In Vitro and In Vivo Feed Digestibility by White-tailed Deer

Abstract

Two captive, rumen-fistulated, white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) were used to evaluate the two-stage in vitro microdigestion technique as an estimator of in vivo dry-matter digestibility. The technique provided digestibility percentages that departed only slightly from in vivo values for the artificial ration tested.