Effect of the Fermented Concentrate Feed on In vitro Gas Production and Digestibility in Cattle

Abstract

The study was conducted to evaluate the effect of the fermented concentrate feeds on gas production, digestibility and fermentation kinetics using in vitro fermentation technique in cattle. Concentrate feeds at 1% of total dry matter (DM) was used as substrates for in vitro rumen fermentation using molasses-yeast mixture. The study included four experimental diets designated as, C= Diet without molasses-yeast mixture, T1= Diet containing molasses at 0.1% of concentrate DM, T2= Diet containing molasses-yeast mixture at 0.2% of concentrate DM and T3= Diet containing molasses-yeast mixture at 0.4% of concentrate DM. In vitro results showed that there were no significant differences (p>0.05) in the chemical composition and pH of the fermented and non-fermented concentrate feeds. In case of total gas production, significant differences (p<0.05) were observed after 12 h (p<0.05), 24 h (p<0.01) and 48 h (p<0.01) of incubation period. The lowest total gas production was noticed in T2 (61.8 ml) and the highest in the control (76.8 ml) group after 48 h of incubation. Significant (p<0.05) differences were observed in in vitro CH4 production after 12 h of incubation where lowest CH4 was measured in T2 (32.8 ml) group. The CO2 production consistently decreased in fermented groups than the control. The highest CO2 production was observed in control (22.2 ml) and lowest in T3 (17.4 ml) group after 48 h of incubation. There were significant (p<0.05) differences in the OM digestibility after 6, 12 and 24 h of incubation period. The highest OM digestibility was observed in T2 (96.4%) than the control (94.5%) group after 24 h of incubation and after 12 h the highest OM digestibility was recorded in T2 (97.2%) and lowest in T1 (95.3%) group. Therefore, it is presumed that concentrate feeds fermented at 0.2% of molasses-yeast mixture has the higher digestibility and methane reducing potentiality.