الخلاصة

This study was conducted to investigate effect of ground corn cobs treatment by sodium hydroxide or calcium hydroxide or ammonium hydroxide or urea or combinations of these alkalis to indicate best chemical treatment in improving nutritive value and possibility of substitution of concentrate diet used by sheep. Results showed that there is a high significant (p<0.01) increase in dry matter (DM) and organic matter (OM) in vitro digestion coefficients of corn cobs treated by sodium hydroxide and combination of sodium hydroxide and calcium hydroxide and combination of sodium hydroxide and ammonium hydroxide which was superior over other treatments. Results indicated that treated corn cobs were significantly (P<0.01) superior in DM, OM and nitrogen degradation percentage, superiority was for corn cobs treated by combination of sodium hydroxide and ammonium hydroxide specially in OM degradation percentage. Best treatment was specified to be combination of sodium hydroxide and ammonium hydroxide to substitute concentrate diet in percentages zero, 15, 30 and 45% in digestion and nitrogen balance trial, results showed that treated corn cobs could replace 30% of concentrate diet.