DIGESTION EXPERIMENTS WITH SHEEP. 



317 



The results are higher than those formerly secured by us, where the 

 corn bran was fed together with hay, exceptiog those for protein and fat. 

 It is evident that the fiber is quite well digested, much more so than that 

 contained in wheat and oats. Comparing the corn bran with corn meal 

 on the basis of net energy values it is found that if corn meal is placed 

 at 100 com bran equals 82. 



The object of this experiment was to study particularly the digestibility 

 of the fiber. For this purpose the grains were added to the hay-Diamond- 

 gluten-meal-starch basal ration, which was quite low in that ingredient. 



Distillers' grains represent the residues from the manufacture of dis- 

 tilled spirits. Those containing a high protein percentage are derived 

 largely from corn. On the basis of 10 per cent, water the two samples 

 contained 26.51 and 23.76 per cent, of protein, and may be considered of 

 fair quality. The best grades usually contain 30 or more per cent, of 

 protein. On the dry matter basis the average of the two samples con- 

 tained 2.07 per cent, ash, 27.92 per cent, protein, 13.67 per cent, fiber, 

 46.69 per cent, extract matter and 9.65 per cent, fat. 



In the present experiments variations are observed in the percentages 

 of the several ingredients digested. It is rather surprising that such 

 differences occur in the percentages of fiber digested. It is evident, in 

 spite of the low fiber content of the basal ration, that the sheep did not 

 utilize the fiber from the distillers' grains very well, which indicates that 

 other grains than corn were used in the mash. Previous trials with corn 

 grains showed higher coefficients for the total dry matter and for the 

 extract matter and fat (see above), while the coefficients for the fiber 

 were believed to have been "too high. It seems probable that in the 

 former trials, where the distillers' grains were fed with hay, the addition 

 of the former increased the digestibility of the hay fiber. It is believed 

 that the extent of the digestibility of distillers' grains will depend upon 



