Using faecal nitrogen as a marker to estimate intake and digestibility in sheep fed multi-species native forage

Livestock production in southern South America heavily relies on extensive native grasslands, characterized by high plant species diversity, which makes estimating forage digestibility and intake by ruminants in this pastoral ecosystem challenging. Therefore, the aim of this study was to develop regression models to establish the relationship between total faecal nitrogen excretion (FNe) and organic matter (OM) intake, and faecal nitrogen content (FNc) and OM digestibility in sheep fed multi-species native forage. In a completely randomized design, 16 Corriedale sheep averaging 44 kg of body weight (BW) were housed in metabolism cages and received forage in amounts of 15, 20, 25 g of dry matter per kg of BW or ad libitum. During the spring of 2019 and the summer of 2020, four measurement periods were carried out. The sheep had 5 days of adaptation to the metabolism cage, 10 days to adapt to the treatments of amounts of forage offered, and 5 days for intake and digestibility measurements. The forage was harvested once a day, and then the fresh forage was offered at two different times, 8 and 17 h. A linear regression model was developed to estimate OM intake in sheep fed multi-species native forage based on the FNe [Intake (g OM/sheep/day) = 107.7 + 101.5 × FNe]. An exponential regression model was developed to estimate forage OM digestibility in sheep based on the FNc (Digestibility = 0.31411e0.02995 × FNc). In conclusion, our findings highlight that the OM intake can be precisely estimated using FNe and a reasonably precise estimation of the forage OM digestibility can be reached by assessing FNc in sheep fed a multi-species native forage from the Rio de la Plata region in South America. •Multi-species native forages were used to study intake and digestibility in sheep•Faecal N was used as a marker to estimate intake and digestibility in sheep fed native forages.•Regression models were performed to predict intake and digestibility in sheep fed native forages.•Faecal N excretion can be used precisely to estimate intake in sheep fed native forages.•Digestibility can be estimated with reasonable precision by assessing the faecal N content in sheep fed native forages.