Effects of available surface on gaseous emissions from group-housed gestating sows kept on deep litter.

In the European Union, the group-housed pregnant sows have to have a minimal legal available area of 2.25 m2/sow. However, it has been observed that an increased space allowance reduces agonistic behaviour and consecutive wounds and thus induces better welfare conditions.

Nutritional properties of potato protein concentrate compared with soybean meal as the main protein source in feed for the double-muscled Belgian Blue bull.

The objective of this experiment was to compare the nutritional properties of potato protein concentrate, a by-product of the starch industry produced entirely in Europe, with that of soybean meal (SBM), for growing cattle. The experiment was conducted on double-muscled Belgian Blue bulls, fitted with rumen, duodenal and ileal cannulas, according to a 4 × 4 Latin square design. They were fed three different iso-N and iso-net energy diets formulated according to the Dutch feed evaluation system, differing in the nature of the main protein source, which was either SBM ('SBM' treatment), potato protein concentrate (PPC, 'PPC' treatment) or an iso-N mixture of these two protein sources ('mixed' treatment).

[Estimation of the quantity of herbage ingested by dairy cows on pasture land. Comparison of methods of estimating digestibility and the mode of fecal sampling].

Herbage intake of grazing dairy cows was estimated with several techniques. Grab sampling introduced an upward bias in the estimate of faecal output in comparison with field sampling. Estimates of OM digestibility by NIR and faecal index methods were similar except with high level of concentrates.