Table 4.

Experiment 1. Effects of increasing supplementation levels of Chlorella vulgaris on food, gross energy and nutrient intake (dry matter, DM, basis), fecal output and characteristics, apparent total tract digestibility (ATTD, %), metabolizable energy content (MJ kg⁻¹ DM), and fecal pH, concentration of ammonia-N (g kg⁻¹ DM), and concentration of volatile fatty acids (μmol g⁻¹ DM).

	Diet			SEM	p-value
	0.5%	1.0%	1.5%
Food intake
g/d (as-is)	301	301	301	0.8	0.998
g/d (DM basis)	278	279	279	0.8	0.985
Gross energy (MJ/d)	5.10	5.11	5.11	0.014	0.904
Nutrient intake
OM	244	244	244	0.7	0.969
CP	70.4	70.8	71.0	0.20	0.161
NDF	63.4	63.3	63.2	0.17	0.836
Fecal output
g/d (as-is)	276	274	272	4.7	0.851
g/d (DM basis)	89.7	88.5	85.8	1.26	0.142
Gross energy (MJ/d)	1.25	1.25	1.22	0.024	0.464
Fecal production (%)	32.0	31.8	30.8	0.42	0.134
Defecations (n/d)	2.4a,b	2.5b	2.3a	0.05	0.026
DM feces (%)	33.5	32.7	31.9	0.58	0.211
Fecal score (1–5)	3.4	3.4	3.5	0.04	0.208
ATTD
DM	68.0	68.2	69.2	0.42	0.134
Organic matter	75.1	75.0	75.7	0.39	0.488
Crude protein	74.1	74.2	73.5	1.11	0.882
Neutral detergent fiber	48.6	48.3	51.0	0.72	0.058
Gross energy	75.5	75.4	76.3	0.45	0.305
Metabolizable energy	12.9	12.8	13.0	0.08	0.261
Fecal metabolites
pH	6.76	6.72	6.68	0.066	0.704
Ammonia-N	2.57	2.47	2.40	0.200	0.837
Volatile fatty acids
Total	1,219	1,259	1,250	90.8	0.948
Acetate	759	784	792	55.8	0.913
Propionate	321	333	314	34.7	0.928
Iso-butyrate	13.2	12.9	13.9	1.05	0.792
Butyrate	103	106	107	3.65	0.724
Iso-valerate	15.1	16.0	16.4	0.79	0.527
Valerate	3.38	4.32	3.01	0.402	0.116
Iso-caproate	2.97	2.96	3.64	0.606	0.671
Caproate	0.722	0.570	0.478	0.1111	0.342
Acetate:propionate	2.39	2.41	2.63	0.178	0.578

^a,bValues with different superscript letters in the same row are significantly different (p < 0.05).