Factors affecting the nutritive value of fodder/ forages

1. Palatability: Newly introduced fodder at the beginning may be less palatable to the animal and vice-versa, thus would be with low nutritive value.
2. Consumption: Influence efficiency with which ingested nutrients are used.
3. Digestibility: The capacity of animal to digest any fodder also affects the nutritive value.
4. Species of animal: Ruminants have more digestibility than non-ruminants.
5. Level of feeding: Too less or too much than required amount at a time, or even required amount in short time will result less nutritive value.
6. Processing: Finely grinding has negative effect in ruminant.
7. Feed composition: oxalate reduces the digestibility of minerals.
8. Associate effect: Cellulose digestibility is reduced when molasses is added, while straw digestibility is increased when it is added with oil-cakes.