Energía digestible (ED) derivada de dos opciones basadas en su composición química.

Objective. To compare of two mathematical models for the prediction of the concentration of digestible energy (DE) in ingredients used in the feeding of ruminants is presented. Materials and Methods. Both approaches differ on the data used for the estimation via wet chemistry for the content of the Total Digestible Nutrients (TDN). Once this value is generated by either method, both approaches followed a similar step to arrive at a DE estimate. The used of a Paires T-Test was used to compare the difference for each pair of values. Results. A difference of 0.664 Mcal/kg of DM (P<0.001) of DE was detected for the FDA approach. Simplicity in generating a value for FDA in comparison to the summatory of the TDN components such as the relative theoretical values of nutrient digestibility's for crude protein, crude lipids x 2.25, crude fiber and free nitrogen extract by difference, is an approach bound to a greater source of human errors in its determination due to a direct relationship of the greater the number of elements the greater the opportunity for errors. Conclusion. The FDA-based model has less variability detected in the ED values generated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]