Basile et al., 1990. Livest. Res. Rural Dev., 2 (1): 1-6

In order to evaluate the effects of steam treatment upon sugar cane bagasse three experiments were conducted. The first was to determinate the best conditions to treat the bagasse. Four pressures were tested (13; 15; 17 and 19 kgf/cm2) during 3 to 10 minutes in a factorial design. The condition that gave the highest in situ digestibility was 19/6 (kgf/cm2)/(min). The second experiment was to evaluate the potencial and the effective degradation of the bagasse treated under the best condition set above. The results indicate a high potential degradation (68.96% in 48 hr), a value very close to 74.22% in 48hr from a high quality hay. Nevertheless, the effective degradation was only 47.90% in 48hr, indicating poor rumen conditions. The third experiment was to study the effects of treated bagasse upon the rumen environment. It was concluded that the main constraint of using steam treated bagasse was its fast rate of passage through the rumen.