Table 6.

Intake, flow, and digestibility of nutrients in the lactating dairy cows fed corn or sorghum varying in particle sizes

Item	Treatment				SEM	P-value
	Corn		Sorghum
	Finely	Coarse	Finely	Coarse		SS	PS	SS × PS
DM
Intake, kg/d	25.50	24.81	22.58	21.39	1.49	0.03	0.45	0.83
Apparent ruminal digestion, %	41.44	44.28	33.89	39.94	3.63	0.04	0.10	0.50
Flow at reticulum, kg/d	14.73	13.80	14.86	12.67	0.63	0.46	0.05	0.36
Apparent total-tract digestion, %	63.26	59.10	61.77	58.49	2.71	0.70	0.21	0.87
OM
Intake, kg/d	23.70	23.06	20.97	19.83	1.37	0.02	0.42	0.82
Apparent ruminal digestion, %	49.81	52.97	44.47	50.45	3.37	0.14	0.09	0.56
Flow at reticulum, kg/d	11.70	10.82	11.63	9.71	0.59	0.36	0.06	0.41
Apparent total-tract digestion, %	64.91	60.37	63.65	59.54	2.70	0.71	0.16	0.94
Starch
Intake, kg/d	6.77	6.50	5.68	5.26	0.50	0.02	0.19	0.76
Apparent ruminal digestion, %	88.77	83.76	85.59	83.10	1.55	0.15	0.02	0.32
Flow at reticulum, kg/d	0.76	1.04	0.82	0.88	0.09	0.39	0.02	0.08
Apparent total-tract digestion, %	96.29	87.84	92.21	86.93	2.15	0.29	0.02	0.49
NDF
Intake, kg/d	7.84	7.86	6.76	6.58	0.52	0.04	0.88	0.85
Apparent ruminal digestion, %	28.32	33.18	32.14	36.57	2.15	0.07	0.03	0.90
Flow at reticulum, kg/d	5.59	5.26	4.64	4.18	0.42	0.05	0.37	0.88
Apparent total-tract digestion, %	35.15	37.65	39.29	41.84	2.35	0.04	0.15	0.99

¹Significance of main effects of statistical model: source of starch in the diet (SS), particle size of the source of starch (PS), and interaction of source of starch in the diet with particle size (SS × PS).

DM, dry matter; OM, organic matter; NDF, Neutral detergent fiber.