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Turkish Journal of Veterinary & Animal Sciences

DOI

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Abstract

This study was conducted to determine the silage quality and degradability of some nutrient matter of pure sudangrass silage (S) and mixed silages made up from 75% sudangrass + 25% hungarian vetch (75S25HV) and 50% sudangrass + 50% hungarian vetch (50S50HV) in the rumen by the nylon bag technique at 4, 8, 16, 24 and 48 h. The three different silage mixtures were put into jars and incubated for 70 days. Four rumen fistulated Akkaraman male lambs were used to determine the degradability of silages in the rumen. Satisfactory silages were obtained in terms of physical properties. While there was statistically significant difference among silages in terms of pH levels P < 0.01, but lactic, acetic, propionic and butyric acid levels of silages were found to be significant at (P < 0.05). The lowest pH, acetic, propionic and butyric acid levels were 5.15, 6.87 g/kg DM, 2.18 g/kg DM and 1.10 g/kg DM, respectively, and the highest lactic acid level was 9.48 g/kg DM obtained from S silage. Although differences among silage groups for dry matter and crude cellulose degradabilities in the rumen at 48 h were not significant, the differences between the crude protein degradability of S and 50S50HV silages were statistically significant (P < 0.01). In general, adding hungarian vetch to sudangrass increased the degradability of dry matter and the crude protein of the silages in the rumen (P < 0.05). In conclusion, in terms of silage quality and the degradability of some nutrients, hungarian vetch can be added up to 25% and 50% on a dry matter basis to sudangrass for ensiling.

Keywords

Silage quality, sudangrass, hungarian vetch, degradability.

First Page

853

Last Page

859

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