Alejandro Britos*, José Luis Repetto and Cecilia Cajarville

Departamento de Producción Animal y Salud de los Sistemas Productivos, Facultad de Veterinaria, Universidad de la República, San José, Uruguay

*Corresponding Author: Alejandro Britos, Departamento de Producción Animal y Salud de los Sistemas Productivos, Facultad de Veterinaria, Universidad de la República, San José, Uruguay.

Received: February 09, 2024Published: February 29, 2024

Abstract

Two experiments were conducted to study the in vitro effects of combining different supplement concentrates with high quality pasture silage. In Experiment I, the effect of increasing the proportion of soyhulls, corn or barley in mixtures with pasture silage from 0 to 100% on in vitro gas production parameters was evaluated. Experiment II determined fermentation activity of inocula from heifers consuming pasture silage alone or silage supplemented with soyhulls, corn or barley at 1% of BW; the rumen fluids were incubated in vitro with forages or concentrates. The gas data were fitted to a simple exponential model with lag phase. Increasing the level of concentrates enhanced the gas volume and decreased its production rate (P< 0.001), but these responses were different for each concentrate. Lag phase was longer as inclusion levels of corn and barley were increased (P < 0.001), but it did not change with the inclusion of soyhulls. No differences were determined between the inocula of heifers supplemented with soyhulls, corn or barley when forages were used as substrates, but differences were evident when the substrates were concentrates. Inoculum from the animals supplemented with barley had a rapid and short fermentation, while the inoculum from non-supplemented animals led to the highest gas production and lag time. Supplementation with corn and soyhulls generated similar responses, despite the differences in carbohydrate composition between the two. The diet of the donor determined the inoculum activity, which subsequently interacted with the type of substrate incubated, leading to important effects on gas production profiles. Therefore, the interpretation of gas production outcomes of mixed feedstuffs or diets should account for these factors.

Keywords: Concentrates; Silage; Ruminal Digestion

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Citation

Citation: Alejandro Britos., et al. “Soyhulls, Corn or Barley as Supplements of a High-Quality Pasture Silage: Effects on In Vitro Ruminal Fermentation".Acta Scientific Veterinary Sciences 6.3 (2024): 113-118.

Copyright

Copyright: © 2024 Alejandro Britos., et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.