Technical Note: A System for Continuous Recording of Ruminal Ph in Cattle.
From: Department of Animal and Poultry Science, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, Canada N1G 2W1.
Journal of animal science
- Publish Date: Jan 2007
- ISSN: 1525-3163
- Volume: 85
- Issue: 1
- Pages: 213-7
- Medium: Internet
- Language: English
- Citation (JAMA): AlZahal O, Rustomo B, Odongo N E, et al. Technical Note: A System for Continuous Recording of Ruminal Ph in Cattle.. J. Anim. Sci. Jan 2007;85:213-7
Abstract
Continuous recording of ruminal pH in cannulated cattle has been practiced to study rumen metabolism. However, most systems reported did not permit animal mobility during pH recording. Therefore, the objective of this study was to develop a continuous rumen pH data acquisition system that permitted animal mobility during data acquisition. A further objective was to compare the pH readings obtained using the continuous recording system to readings obtained at the same time using spot sampling. The continuous recording system was composed of a heavy-duty electrode and a data logger. The electrode was attached to a 0.5-kg weight to help maintain the electrode in the ventral sac of the rumen. The electrode was connected via a 0.5-m cable to a lightweight data logger that was mounted on the animal’s back using a belt wrapped around the girth. The data logger was battery powered and could hold over 13,000 pH data values. A personal digital assistant was used to configure and download data from the data logger during the experiment. Ruminal pH was continuously recorded (every 10 s) using a dry Holstein cow fed alfalfa hay ad libitum in a 3-d experiment to compare the performance of the continuous system to spot samples taken from the ventral sac of the rumen, the same location as the continuous electrode. The spot samples were collected 3 times per d for 3 d. At every sampling time, 3 replicate samples were collected, pH was determined immediately using a handheld pH meter, and readings were averaged (n = 3) and compared with the average of the 3 pH readings recorded using the continuous system at the same time. The pH recorded by spot sampling (6.63 +/- 0.04) was greater (P = 0.009) than that of the continuous system (6.56 +/- 0.03), with a correlation of r = 0.88 (P = 0.002). The continuous recording system has the potential to facilitate measurement of ruminal pH in free-roaming cattle.
Mesh Headings (Keywords): Animals, Cattle, Electrodes, Implanted, Female, Hydrogen-Ion Concentration, Monitoring, Physiologic, Reproducibility of Results, Rumen
Check for Full Text / PubMed Unique Identifier (PMID): 17179558
This abstract is part of PubMed, a service of the U.S. National Library of Medicine. PubMed includes more than 17 million citations from MEDLINE and other life science journals for biomedical articles. See Copyright and Disclaimers.
Linked medical terms appearing on this page are added by Healia to help readers find more information and are not part of the original PubMed document.
The data herein was last updated on July 8th, 2008 and may not reflect the most current and accurate data available from NLM.