PREDICTION OF NUTRITIONAL VALUE OF FEEDS AND DIGESTION OF RUMINANTS

The goal is to define and evaluate the nutritional value of conventional and unconventional feeds for ruminants and horses and to recommend and use optimum technologies in the ensilaging of forage.

We deal with the nutritional value of feeds and their degradability and digestibility by ruminants and horses. In vitro, in sacco and mobile bag techniques are developed and applied to determine these values. The group examines the rate of degradation of fibre fractions, the ratio of digestible neutral detergent fibre (NDF) to non-digestible NDF, the relationship between degradability parameters of crude protein (CP) and NDF from the point of view of forage harvest period.

In addition to traditional feeds we test different varieties of white and narrow-leaved lupines in terms of forage quality in various stages of growth analysing the feed in order to establish CP fractions.

We verify the technological procedures of forage conservation and ensilaging and the influence of chemical and biological products on the quality of silage.

NUTRITION OF HIGH PERFORMANCE DAIRY COWS

The goal is to improve the nutrition of high-performing dairy cows during the entire transition period and the systems of breeding the Old Kladruby Horse in the Kladruby farmstead mainly through nutrition and health condition.

We verify the techniques of feeding TMR, deal with the issue of feeding techniques during the dry period and the feeding of unconventional forage.

Research in the field of milk quality focuses mainly on improving the profile of fatty acids and amino acids in milk.