The work was conducted to relate the energy availability with the feedstuffs composition obtained form fast and cheap analysis, due to the importance of nutritive value and to the impossibility to measure the available energy of the feedstuffs by simple lab analysis. This work were carried out at the Universidade Federal de Viçosa (UFV) using as a data source all thesis published at the Animal Science Department that contained the energy of the feeds available considering the total digestible nutrients (TDN), and also the chemical and biological analysis of the diets. A data bank was made up using all available results relating by means of regression equations the available energy with the others feedstuffs characteristics to estimate the TDN value. The regression equations showed a positive correlation between the TDN value and digestibility and negative correlation in relation to the fiber content. Since the population characteristics are respected, the regression equations could be used to estimate, with certain accuracy, the TDN values.
energy of feedstuff; energy value; total digestible nutrients
