Abstract
This study aimed to clarify the effect of mobile bag size and ratio of sample size to bag surface area on intestinal digestibility of forage in sheep. Four Suffolk ewes fitted with ruminal and proximal duodenal cannulae were fed second-cut Italian ryegrass (Lolium multiflorum Lam.) hay twice daily, and the same forage was used to measure intestinal digestibility. The forage samples were incubated in the rumen for 16 h and then in pepsin-HCl solution for 3 h before intestinal incubation. The incubated forage samples were placed in a nylon mobile bag. The bag sizes used were either 20 mm${\times}$20 mm (small bag size; SBS) or 30 mm${\times}$30 mm (large bag size; LBS) and the ratio of the sample size to the surface area of the bag was either 5.5 $mg/cm^{2}$ (low ratio; LR) or 11.0 $mg/cm^{2}$ (high ratio; HR) resulting in four different treatment conditions: SBS-LR, SBS-HR, LBS-LR and LBS-HR. Eight bags per animal were inserted through the duodenal cannulae at 15-min intervals and were subsequently collected from the feces of the animal. The mean intestinal bag transition time did not differ significantly between animals, but ranged from 23.2 to 27.0 h. The intestinal digestibility of dry matter (IDDM) ranged from 0.162${\pm}$0.019 g/g in the SBS-HR treatment group to 0.195${\pm}$0.018 g/g in the SBS-LR treatment. The intestinal digestibility of crude protein (IDCP) ranged from 0.610${\pm}$0.031 g/g in the LBS-LR treatment to 0.693${\pm}$0.018 g/g in the SBS-LR treatment. There was no difference in the IDDM and IDCP between different treatments. It was therefore concluded that the size of the mobile bag and the ratio of the sample size to the bag surface area did not influence the intestinal digestibility of forage. Future studies should use bags with high ratios of sample size to surface area in order to obtain sufficient residue for further analysis.