Utilizing faecal near infrared spectroscopy to improve nutritional management of grazing cattle in the tropics of northern Australia

Abstract

Introduction: Near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) is used extensively for analysis of feedstuffs, including forages. NIRS can be used to analyse constituents of faeces such as N and fibre fractions. Despite digestion in the gastrointestinal tract much of the spectral information of forages can also be measured in faeces. Thus many attributes of forage diets of cattle can be measured from the NIR spectra of faeces (F.NIRS; Lyons and Stuth, 1992; Dixon and Coates, 2009). Conclusions: F.NIRS has been developed to estimate the quality of the diet selected and the productivity of cattle grazing extensive rangelands in the tropics of northern Australia. F.NIRS can be used to estimate many attributes of the diet selected by grazing ruminants and provides opportunities to improve management for both production of grazing livestock and sustainability of the pasture resources.