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Modelling Digestive Constraints In Non-Ruminant And Ruminant Foregut-Fermenting Mammals, Adam Munn, W Jürgen Streich, Jurgen Hummel, Marcus Clauss

Faculty of Science, Medicine and Health - Papers: part A

It has been suggested that large foregut-fermenting marsupial herbivores, the kangaroos and their relatives, may be less constrained by food intake limitations as compared with ruminants, due mainly to differences in their digestive morphology and management of ingesta particles through the gut. In particular, as the quality Of forage declines with increasing contents of plant fibre (cellulose, hemicelluloses and lignin; measured as neutral-detergent fibre, NDF), the tubiform foregut of kangaroos may allow these animals to maintain food intakes more so than ruminants like sheep, which appear to be limited by fibrous bulk filling the foregut and truncating further ingestion. Using …