Prediction of animal performance from chemical analyses and in vitro digestibility data

Evaluation of forages is expensive and often time consuming. Since feed cost is one of the most expensive items in milk production, the use of a good forage in the dairy ration has long been recognized as valuable and economical; therefore, it is of interest to the dairyman that accurate, fast, and economical methods of forage evaluation be available.

Well conducted feeding and digestion trials have been recognized as two of the best methods of forage evaluation; however, the time involved, facilities required, and amount of feed needed to conduct feeding and digestion trials limit the number of forages that can be evaluated.

The development of new forages, the improvement of the present ones, and the changes that occur with advancing maturity make it increasingly important that faster and more economical methods of forage evaluation be developed. This study was conducted to determine the value of several chemical analyses and in vitro techniques as predictors of dry matter digestibility and dry matter intake of forage.