5.4. Nutrient Digestibility
A. H. Thomas
ASH
Diet samples were ground through a 1 mm screen in a Wiley mill (A. H. Thomas Co.) and dried in an oven overnight at 105 °C for DM estimation. Samples were ashed at 550 °C for 5 h [For the estimation of ruminal nutrient digestibility, digesta samples collected on d 8, 9, and 10 were freeze-dried for DM determination and immediately ground using a mortar and pestle and analyzed for OM, N, aNDF, ADF, and starch as earlier described. To estimate ruminal true digestibility of nutrients, artificial saliva collected on d 5 was freeze-dried for DM estimation and analyzed for total N and ash as previously described. We used the following equation for nutrient digestibility estimation [