ESTIMATION OF THE FIBER CONTENT OF FEEDST UFFS

In a serie of 8 concentrates, 18 roughages and 13 wet feedstuffs the i nteractions between different dietary fibre fractions were studied. In comparison to other analytical methods the crude fibre method (XF) di d not allow a satisfactory estimation of the dietary fibre content (DF ) of the experimental feedstuffs. In comparison to the NDF and the die tary fibre content and depending on the feedstuff, XF content was lowe red by 2 to 3 times and 2 to 4 times, respectively. There was a surpri singly high correspondence between the contents of NDF and unsoluble d ietary fibre for almost all feedstuffs. Highly significant statistical coherences could be observed between the different fibre fractions. I t can be expected, that these correlations do not always follow a line ar relationship, as could be observed in the regressions equations for NDF to DF and XF to ADF.