Italian Journal of Animal Science (Sep 2015)

In vitro fermentation of structural carbohydrate-rich feeds using faecal inoculum from pigs

  • Nadia Musco,
  • Serena Calabrò,
  • Federico Infascelli,
  • Raffaella Tudisco,
  • Pietro Lombardi,
  • Micaela Grossi,
  • Laura Addi,
  • Bruna Ponciano Neto,
  • Monica I. Cutrignelli

DOI
https://doi.org/10.4081/ijas.2015.3875
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 14, no. 3

Abstract

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Seven feeds were tested in vitro using faecal inoculum from pigs. Sugar beet pulp, wheat bran, soybean hulls, grapecake, glutamic beet pulp, citrus by-product and fructo-oligo - saccharides (FOS) were fermented for 96 h. Cumulative gas production was measured as indicator of the fermentation kinetics. At the end of incubation organic matter disappearance and fermentation end-products (short-chain fatty acids and NH3) were also measured. The gas production profiles were fitted with a multiphasic model. Significant differences were detected between grapecake and FOS: the very low gas production for the first one was probably due to the high lignin and tannins contents of this by-product, while the higher organic matter cumulative gas volume (OMCV) and organic matter disappearance (OMD) values for FOS were due to the high soluble fibre proportion. Soybean hulls and citrus by-product, showed similar values of degradability and gas production and were characterised by different fermentation profiles. Grapecake showed the lower fermentation, while citrus by-product was characterized high gas and short-chain fatty acids production. These characteristics could be particularly useful to optimize the caecum-colon fermentation in order to obtain a high butyrate acid production.

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