抄録
A simplified method for the determination of feeds digestibility was introduced by O. BERGEIM (1926) who had used iron oxide as the index substance so as to calculate the percentage digestibility of feeds by determining the ratio of the amount of any given feeds substance to the amount of iron in the feeds and in the feces.
In this study barium sulphate was employed as the index substance from the reason of its stability against both acid and base, and the digestion experiments of the beet pulp and the fish meal mixture were performed with two goats adding 2 parts BaSO4 to 98 parts those feeds in order to examine the accuracy of the barium ratio method in comparision, with the crdinary method.
The data of the ordinary digestion experiment and the calculated data on the the base of barium ratio are given in the following table.
The table shows that there is no remarkable difference between the data of both methods, so that barium sulphate is quite stable in the digestive tracts without any chemical change and excreted quantitatively in feces again, Barium sulphate would mix well and go with the ingesta without settling in any part of tracts, because it has such properties to become colloidal state easily in the stomach.
From these reason and these experimental results the authors are convinced that the barium ratio method is more excellent than BERGEIM's iron ratio method to decide the digestibility of feeds simply.
