Table 3.

The concentration of short-chain fatty acids (SCFA, mmol/g) in ceca digesta of broiler chickens in response to cereal grain type, fiber, and multienzyme supplement (MES) fed from hatch to 28 d of life.

Grain type	Fiber level	MES1	Lactic	Acetic	Propionic	Iso-butyric	Butyric	Total SCFA
Corn			22.36	58.20	5.73	13.76	22.13b	122.2
Wheat			25.02	60.31	5.35	12.41	26.98a	129.9
	Low		22.79	60.34	5.70	12.68	25.85	128.0
	High		24.60	58.18	5.38	13.49	23.26	124.1
		-	23.98	59.00	5.71	12.35	24.20	124.4
		+	23.41	59.51	5.37	13.82	24.91	127.7
SEM			1.70	2.40	0.37	0.87	1.66	4.21
P-value
Grain			0.127	0.385	0.309	0.132	0.006	0.074
Fiber			0.294	0.375	0.401	0.360	0.126	0.354
MES			0.738	0.834	0.374	0.101	0.671	0.440
Grain*Fiber			0.610	0.523	0.491	0.747	0.641	0.267
Grain*MES			0.614	0.077	0.387	0.543	0.834	0.197
Fiber*MES			0.211	0.839	0.296	0.626	0.682	0.939
Grain*Fiber*MES			0.840	0.712	0.315	0.473	0.163	0.378

Within a factor of analyses, response factors with means with different superscripts are significantly different, P < 0.05.

¹MES: multienzyme supplement supplied main activities of xylanase and β-glucanase and other minor activities including invertase, protease, cellulase, amylase and mannanase. The targeted activity level of xylanase and β-glucanase were 800 and 160, U/kg of feed, respectively.