[Use of Alkali Treatments in Ruminant Feeding .2. Ammonia Treatment]

Alkali treatments of lignocellulosic forages, like straws, increase their nutritive value and allow the incorporation of greater proportions into ruminant diets. In this way, they constitute an important energy resource. In addition to the fact that the ammonia treatment of the straw can be easily performed by the farmer, it also increases the nitrogen content of the forage which is generally limiting. As a consequence, the treated straw can cover maintenance requirements of the animals and ever a small part of production requirements. The different balance trials which are described in the present paper, deal with the effects of ammonia treatments of wheat and oat straw. Increase in voluntary feed intake exceded 26 % and digestibility increased by 12 %. In growing bulls, the ammonia treatment of straw had only a small effect on feed intake and daily body weight gain (+ 58 g/d), while the feed conversion was slightly decreased (-0.244 kg DM/kg body weight gain).