Effects of deer or cattle inoculum on estimating nutritive value of deer forages using in situ bag technique in the artificial rumen

A study was conducted to determine the feasibility of using cattle as an inoculum donor for estimating the nutritive value of deer feedstuffs. The test feedstuffs were soybean hulls, alfalfa pellets, corn cobs, rice hulls, rice straw, cottonseed hulls, and sawdust. Four replicates of bags containing feedstuffs were incubated for periods up to 72 h in two chemostats filled with cattle or deer ruminal inoculum. Overall, source of inoculum did not affect microbial biomass in the effluent of chemostats, fractionation of dry matter (DM) and neutral detergent fiber (NDF), extent of DM and NDF disappearance, and digestion rate of NDF of test feedstuffs. However, source of inoculum influenced estimation of digestible and indigestible fractions of DM and NDF in a few feedstuffs. Use of cattle ruminal inoculum was reasonable and valid for estimating the rate and extent of digestion of feed nutrients for farmed deer when the nylon bag plus the artificial rumen technique was used.