Chemical composition of Southeast Asian Colobine foods

Citation

Nijboer J, Dierenfeld ES, Yeager CP, Bennett EL, Bleisch W, Mitchell AH. 1997. Chemical composition of Southeast Asian Colobine foods. In Proceedings of the Second Conference on Zoo and Wildlife Nutrition, AZA Nutrition Advisory Group, Fort Worth, TX.

Abstract

Digestive disturbances have been considered a major health issue among captive colobines [Janssen, 1994; Calle et al., 1995]. Inadequate or inappropriate fiber sources may underlie some of these problems. Apart from maintaining normal gastrointestinal function [Van Soest, 1994 ], one critical issue in husbandry of these species is the necessity of providing a suitable diet for supporting pregastric [Stevens, 1988] fermentation for microbial degradation of plant cell wall constituents as an energy source [Bauchop and Martucci, 1968; Bauchop, 1978; Waterman, 1984]. Alternatively, suitable microbial populations may provide important detoxification mechanisms for coping with secondary compounds identified in leaves and seeds consumed in nature [Freeland and Janzen, 1974; Hladik, 1977; Oates et al., 1977; Lebreton, 1982; Waterman, 1984]. Furthermore, both excessive soluble carbohydrate [Goltenboth, 1976; Waterman, 1984] and protein [Davies et al., 1988] concentrations in diets fed to captive colobines have been implicated in health disorders.

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