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The effect of dietary ratios of corn silage and alfalfa hay on carbohydrate digestion and retention time of feed particles in the gastrointestinal tract of steers
Author(s) -
OBITSU Taketo,
GOTO Masahiko,
SUGINO Toshihisa,
TANIGUCHI Kohzo,
YUKIZANE Kenichiro,
IMOTO Shingo,
YANAGAWA Mirei,
ELSABAGH Mabrouk
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
animal science journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.606
H-Index - 38
eISSN - 1740-0929
pISSN - 1344-3941
DOI - 10.1111/j.1740-0929.2009.00661.x
Subject(s) - latin square , neutral detergent fiber , dry matter , digestion (alchemy) , rumen , silage , chemistry , hay , zoology , forage , carbohydrate , total mixed ration , food science , fiber , composition (language) , agronomy , biology , biochemistry , fermentation , chromatography , lactation , linguistics , philosophy , pregnancy , genetics , organic chemistry , ice calving
Four Holstein steers fitted with duodenal cannula were used in a 4 × 4 Latin square design to investigate the effect of the combination of corn silage (CS) and alfalfa hay (AH) in different ratios on the ruminal and intestinal digestion of carbohydrates and feed particle passage rate. Steers were fed mixed diets containing both CS and AH in ratios of 80:20, 60:40, 40:60 and 20:80 on a dry matter basis at 95% of ad libitum feed intake. The increase of AH proportion in diets increased dry matter intake and ruminal digestion of dry matter, non‐fiber carbohydrate, neutral and acid detergent fiber linearly. Ruminal digestibility of neutral detergent fiber showed a quadratic response, and total digestibility increased linearly with increasing AH proportion. Digestibility of acid detergent fiber in the rumen was not affected by the dietary treatments, but the total tract digestibility increased as the AH proportion increased. Mean retention time of feed particles in total compartment increased when the AH proportion increased from 20% to 60%, but decreased with further increase of the AH proportion. These results indicate that moderate combinations of CS and AH have an associative effect on ruminal fiber digestion, modifying particle movement in the rumen.