The effect of age of pre-ruminant calves on starch digestibility

Apparent starch digestibility (ASD) was studied in an experiment with five male calves of Czech Red Pied breed at the age of 9 to 91 days. Animals wer e fed on a milk replacer containing 5% of wheat starch. Digestibility was d etermined in 23 three-day balance periods using the chromic oxide indicator method. The average estimated value of ASD was 0.934 /- 0.00536. Starch di gestibility changed highly significantly (P < 0.01) with the age of calves. The dependence of determined values (<gamma>) on age in days (X) was expre ssed by the 2nd degree parabola equation with a maximum on Day 54. The most marked increase was observed in the first weeks of the experiment, from Da y 9 to Day 28, by 0.0064 per day (P < 0.05). It is of interest that even in very young animals starch was more digestible than it was expected.