Suchergebnisse

10 pages, 5 figures, 4 tables. ; The study was carried out on a continuously stocked grass/white clover pasture, which was maintained at two sward heights: 3.5 cm (low; LSH) and 6.5 cm (high; HSH). Three oesophageal-cannulated and three other rumen-cannulated Merino sheep were allocated to each of the plots (LSH and HSH) in order to study the effects of sward height and advancing grazing season on rumen fermentation in grazing sheep. Three grazing periods (13 days) were considered: mid lune, late July anti early October. During each grazing period and after a preliminary period (7 days), samples of the grazed herbage and of grass hay were incubated in nylon bags in the rumen of each sheep for 0, 3, 6, 12, 24, 48, 72 and 96 h. On days 10 and 12 rumen fluid was sampled at the incubation time (11.00 h) and at 3, 6 and 12 h afterwards and pH, ammonia-nitrogen and volatile fatty acids (VFA) concentrations were determined. Sward height did not affect (P > 0.05) the degradation rate of dry matter (DM) and neutral-detergent fibre (NDF) from grazed herbage in ally of the considered periods. Animals grazing LSH presented higher (P 0.05) observed during October. Sward height did not affect CP < 0.05) grass hay DMED and NDFED during July but during June and October HSH grazing sheep presented higher (P < 0.05) values. In general, DMED and NDFED from grazed herbage increased with advancing season, the lowest ((P < 0.05) value being observed during lune. Rumen ammonia-nitrogen concentrations were higher during October than during lune and July for both sward heights but values were higher than 200 mg/l at any sampling time during all grazing seasons. Rumen pH values were within the range considered adequate for maintaining a normal cellulolytic activity at most of the sampling times, with the exception of sheep grazing LSH during October. Rumen VFA concentrations were within the range reported for other grazing studies and only a few differences between sward heights were found. Differences in rumen parameters are discussed in relation to both chemical composition of grazed herbage and pattern of intake. ; Financial support for this work through a CICYT Project (AGF94.0026) and by a European Union Project (AIR CT92-0646) is gratefully acknowledged. ; Peer reviewed