Chemical Treatment of Low Quality Roughages

Abstract

Summary A LFALFA stems, corn cobs, whole corn plant and corn stalks were treated with sodium hydroxide or peroxides and fed to lambs in digestion and metabolism trials. The dry roughages were mixed with the chemicals and enough water to increase the moisture to 50%. The materials were fed after a 48-hr. reaction period or after ensiling. Four percent NaOH treatment increased the dry matter digestibility of alfalfa stems by 6.8 percentage units. Corn cob dry matter digestibility in- creased by 11.2 percentage units due to 4% NaOH treatment. In vitro DMD of whole corn plant increased 9.7 percentage units but in vivo 'organic matter digestibility increased by only 2.5 percentage units. In vitro DMD of corn stalks increased 12.8 and 19.5 per= centage units, respectively, with 3 and 5% NaOH treatment. In vivo organic matter di- gestibility of corn stalks increased 10.1 and 11.2 percentage units, respectively, for 3 and 5% NaOH treatment when fed supplemented only with urea, minerals and vitamins. The five percent NaOH treated stalks showed a 20.5 percentage unit increase in organic mat- ter digestibility compared to untreated stalks when both were fed in combination with ground alfalfa stems. These results indicate that poor quality roughages can be treated with 3 to 5% NaOH, the moist mixture after ensiling is consumed readily by lambs without further treatment, and that the dry matter digestibility is increased by sufficient magni- tude to potentially improve animal perfor- mance. Introduction Low quality roughages are inefficiently util- ized by ruminants because of high content and poor digestibility of the fibrous fractions. This poor digestibility is related to the extent of