• Nandana Chandrasekhar
• Ajith K. S.
• Ally K
• Deepa A.
• Rajeev T. S.

The intricacies in the digestion and metabolism of nutrients are less understood and it is very difficult to assess the nutritive value of feed offered to elephants in wild as well as in captivity. Elephant being a hind gut fermenter, a novel technique was adopted to investigating the potentiality of using In vitro gas production technique (IVGPT) to study the digestibility of organic matter and metabolizable energy content in the feed fed to elephants under captivity using elephant dung as inoculum. IVGPT was carried out as per standard method suggested by Menke et al., 1979. The gas production of samples was recorded after 24, 48 and 72 hours of fermentation. In vitro organic matter digestibility and metabolizable energy obtained was higher for concentrates and lower for roughages. In vitro organic matter digestibility and metabolizable energy respectively of grass, palm leaves, straw, jack leaves, plantain stem, maize and ragi were 25.74, 28.60, 14.72, 27.95, 30.54, 67.87 and 55.37 per cent, respectively and 3.75, 4.15, 2.08, 4.06, 4.52, 10.26 and 8.35 MJ/kg DM respectively. Further studies are necessary to evaluate the efficiency of utilizing elephant dung as source of inoculum to predict nutritive value of feeds fed to elephants.

Invitro gas production, Elephant dung, Invitro organic matter digestibility.

"Investigation On The Potential Of In Vitro Gas Production Technique For Assessing The Nutritive Value Of Feeds Consumed By Asian Elephants", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.8, Issue 2, page no.1633-1636, February-2021, Available :http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR2102195.pdf

"Investigation On The Potential Of In Vitro Gas Production Technique For Assessing The Nutritive Value Of Feeds Consumed By Asian Elephants", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org | UGC and issn Approved), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.8, Issue 2, page no. pp1633-1636, February-2021, Available at : http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR2102195.pdf