Protein degradation and optimum urea concentration in cereal-based diets for sheep

1. Early-weaned lambs were used to estimate the concentration of urea required to give the maximum intake and utilization of maize or barley with either a high (HPB) or low (LPB) protein content. 2. Approximately the same concentration of urea (7--11 g urea/kg feed) was required for maximum intake and feed utilization of both HPB and LPB. With maize there was no increase in intake, live weight gain, digestion and feed conversion as a result of adding more than 7 g urea/kg. 3. The proportion of protein degraded in the rumen was estimated by the synthetic fibre bag technique to be 0.69, 0.82 and 0.54 for HPB, LPB and maize respectively. The similarity in concentration of urea required for optimum utilization of LPB AND HPB might be explained by differences in the extent of degradation of protein in the rumen, but the lower concentration of urea required for maize cannot be similarly explained. 4. From estimates of yield of microbial protein in the rumen, the extent of rumen fermentation and the measured extent of protein degradation, theoretical requirements for urea were calculated and compared with other predictions and with the experimentally determined values. For barley, predicted values agreed reasonably well with experimental ones, but for maize all values, including those derived by a new system adopted by the Agricultural Research Council (ARC) Working Party, were too high.