[Protein-carbohydrate ratio in the diet and its effect on digestive processes in sheep]

Four experimental periods were followed up with fistulated sheep. During each period the animals were offered rations of different protein and carbohydrate ration. Experiments were also carried out to elucidate the physiology of the digestive processes, and the resorption and metabolism of the various nutrients. It was established that digestive and metabolic processes ran a best course at the protein to carbohydrate ration of 1:5.8. At 1:10 and 1:14.5% a carbohydrate depression set in which led to a certain drop of the coefficients of digestibility. The body was forced to excrete higher amounts of digestive juices with a higher content of organic mineral matter in the duodenal chyme. The digestive apparatus was said to be subjected to substantial stress during the conversion of the various feeds and their components into nutrients that were characteristic of the organism, their ratio being thoroughly different in principle in the feeds and in the animals body. Conversion was shown to start not in the blood and tissues but in the digestive tract.