Modified wood waste and straw as potential components of animal feeds

Abstract

Beech, oak and poplar sawdusts and barley straw were modified by physical, chemical and fungal treatments and then evaluated for their possible usefulness as components of animal feeds by measuring their digestibility using a rumen liquor‐acid pepsin in vitro method. The most successful modification of sawdust was achieved by fungal treatment with Fomes lividus followed by NaOH treatment. The apparent organic matter digestibility (o.m.d.) of beech was increased from 5 to 59, and of oak sapwood from 14 to 56. By the same treatments, the o.m.d. of straw was increased from 46 to 70.