Variations in the digestibility of trace elements (Cu, Zn and Mn) during the first cycle of cocksfoot growth.
The variations of trace element availability was examined with 6 adult male sheep (Texel) maintained in metabolic crates. They received cocksfoot cut each morning during the first vegetation cycle and offered ad libitum (10 % refused food), for 6 day periods. It appears from the resulting data that: -- The stage of cocksfoot development has a strong influence upon the digestibility and the retention of copper, zinc and manganese. --There is an almost perfect parallelism between the variations of manganese digestibility and retention and those of cocksfoot manganese content. -- For copper, the beginning of the first vegetation cycle (young grass highly digestible) is as poorly digestible as the flowering (strawy hay of poor quality). This last result would indicate that the low copper digestibility generally observed with young grass depends on specific factors related to the characteristics of forage at the early vegetation stage. Zinc behaves similarly.
D000821:Animal Feed; D000818:Animals; D003300:Copper / Q000378:metabolism; D004063:Digestion; D008297:Male; D008345:Manganese / Q000378:metabolism; D006109:Poaceae / Q000254:growth & development*; D012756:Sheep / Q000378:metabolism; D014131:Trace Elements / Q000378:metabolism*; D015032:Zinc / Q000378:metabolism
D014131:Trace Elements; D008345:Manganese; D003300:Copper; D015032:Zinc