A measure of the concentration of matter per unit of volume (e.g., g/l or kg/m3)

Pathologically excessive evacuation of watery feces. Diarrhea may be due to an infectious agent (bacterial infection) or a dietary imbalance.

The mixture of digestive secretion, bacterial population and feeds undergoing digestion in the gastro-intestinal tract (such as rumen content).

A measure of the proportion of a feed that is digestible. The digestibility of a nutrient is often measured as the difference between the amount of nutrient ingested minus the amount of nutrient excreted in the feces, expressed as a percentage of the nutrient ingested: 100 x (intake - excreted)/intake.

A non-lactating cow. The dry period is the time between lactation, when the cow is not secreting milk.

That part of the feed which is not water. It is usually determined by the residual weight of a sample placed for a period of time in a drying oven that removes the water from the sample. Usually, the dry matter content of a feed is expressed as a percentage. For example, an hay of 85% dry matter contains 85 g of dry matter for each 100 g of fresh feed.

A method of expressing the concentration of a nutrient in a feed. For example, a feed containing 12% crude protein on a dry matter basis contains 12 g of protein for each 100 g of feed dry matter

Quantity of dry matter ingested by a cow in a 24 h period. For example, a cow eating 18 kg of grass silage of 33% of dry matter ingest 18 x 0.33 = 6 kg of grass silage dry matter.

First part of the small intestine. The secretions of the liver and pancreas are discharged into the duodenum.