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Acta Prataculturae Sinica ›› 2025, Vol. 34 ›› Issue (11): 150-160.DOI: 10.11686/cyxb2024481

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Construction of a predictive model for the 48-hour digestibility of neutral detergent fiber in forage

Yun-yi LIANG1(), Ya-kun CHEN1, Ke-ke HE1,2, Jia-yu YANG1,3, Lian-sheng ZHAO1(), Deng-pan BU1()   

  1. 1.State Key Laboratory of Animal Nutrition and Feeding,Institute of Animal Science,Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences,Beijing 100193,China
    2.Xinjiang Key Laboratory of Herbivore Nutrition for Meat & Milk,College of Animal Science,Xinjiang Agricultural University,Urumqi 830052,China
    3.College of Animal Science,Shanxi Agriculture University,Taigu 030801,China
  • Received:2024-12-03 Revised:2025-02-17 Online:2025-11-20 Published:2025-10-09
  • Contact: Lian-sheng ZHAO,Deng-pan BU

Abstract:

Forage is the primary source of dietary fiber for ruminants. Neutral detergent fiber (NDF) is an important indicator used to measure the fiber content of roughage. Its digestibility is a key parameter for evaluating forage quality and animal dry matter intake. Currently, the in vitro 48-hour NDF digestibility (NDFD48) is commonly used to assess forage NDF digestibility. An accurate measure of the NDFD48 value of roughage is important for balancing animal diets. Presently, roughage NDFD48 can be measured using the rumen nylon bag technique, laboratory semi-in vitro methods, or near-infrared spectroscopy, but these are often constrained by test conditions and unavailability of equipment. Given the biological significance of NDFD48, this study aimed to develop a computational method to predict NDFD48. Fiber indicators (NDF and acid detergent fiber, ADF) and digestibility indicators (NDFD48) from NASEM (2021) were used as a test set to build the NDFD48 model. Fourteen articles from the Journal of Dairy Science along with relevant indicators, and laboratory-measured values, were selected as two validation sets for the model. The results showed that the calculated NDFD48 values were significantly correlated with the measured NDFD48 values in the two validation sets (P<0.001), with R2 values of 0.89 and 0.85, respectively. The model was further validated using the concordance correlation coefficient (CCC), achieving CCC values of 0.93 and 0.91. This model requires fewer input indicators, is easy to compute, and demonstrates high accuracy. Based on the evaluation performed here, the model can provide forage NDF estimates suitable for production applications and forage nutrition prediction.

Key words: roughage, fiber digestibility, simplified algorithm