Effects of Sunflower Cake Integration on Ration Digestibility and Metabolic Profile in Equine Tourism Horses

The scope for using sunflower cake in ration formulation was tested in 6 horses employed for equine tour-ism. three experimental diets providing the same amount of proteins and energy as the control diet were formulated using rising doses of sunflower cake (sd3: 0.3 kg; sd6: 0.6 kg and sd10: 1.0 kg). digestibility evaluation using internal markers showed that rising sunflower cake doses reduced digestibility of nutrients. statistical analysis using the diet effect demonstrated a significant reduction in dry matter (dm) (p=0.0006), ether extract (ee) (p=0.0001), crude fibre (cp) (p=0.0279), neutral detergent fiber (ndf) (p=0.0247) and acid detergent fiber (adf) (p=0.0269) digestibility. comparison of the two internal mark-ers acid insoluble ash (aia) and acid detergent lignin (adl) showed better digestibility values for all measures using adl. also glucose and urea showed statistical differences due to diet effect.