Digestibility of crude nutrients and minerals in C57Bl/6J and CD1 mice fed a pelleted lab rodent diet.

In laboratory animals, there is a scarcity of digestibility data under non-experimental conditions. Such data is important as basis to generate nutrient requirements, which contributes to the refinement of husbandry conditions. Digestibility trials can also help to identify patterns of absorption and potential factors that influence the digestibility. Thus, a digestibility trial with a pelleted diet used as standard feed in laboratory mice was conducted. To identify potential differences between genetic lines, inbred C57Bl/6 J and outbred CD1 mice (n = 18 each, male, 8 weeks-old, housed in groups of three) were used. For seven days, the feed intake was recorded and the total faeces per cage collected. Energy, crude nutrient and mineral content of diet and faecal samples were analyzed to calculate the apparent digestibility (aD). Apparent dry matter and energy digestibility did not differ between both lines investigated. The C57Bl/6 J mice had significantly higher aD of magnesium and potassium and a trend towards a lower aD of sodium than the mice of the CD1 outbred stock. Lucas-tests were performed to calculate the mean true digestibility of the nutrients and revealed a uniformity of the linear regression over data from both common laboratory mouse lines. The mean true digestibility of crude nutrients was > 90%, except for fibre, that of the minerals ranged between 66 and 97%.