Table 5.

Experiment 2. Effects of increasing supplementation levels of Nannochloropsis oceanica 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)	312	312	309	3.4	0.740
g/d (DM basis)	286	288	285	3.1	0.717
Gross energy (MJ/d)	5.23	5.28	5.21	0.058	0.706
Nutrient intake
OM	249	251	248	2.7	0.686
CP	72.0	72.6	71.7	0.81	0.711
NDF	65.0	65.5	64.6	0.71	0.673
Fecal output
g/d (as-is)	272	267	258	8.1	0.498
g/d (DM basis)	100.1	94.4	88.7	3.78	0.165
Gross energy (MJ/d)	1.31	1.31	1.28	0.032	0.794
Fecal production (%)	35.0	32.8	31.4	1.38	0.229
Defecations (n/d)	2.3	2.5	2.6	0.05	0.181
DM feces (%)	36.3	34.7	34.8	0.64	0.188
Fecal score (1–5)	3.4a	3.3b	3.3b	0.03	0.036
ATTD	65.0	67.2	68.6	1.38	0.233
DM	74.8	75.1	75.2	0.59	0.891
Organic matter	69.6	70.7	72.3	1.43	0.440
Crude protein	74.9	75.1	75.2	0.65	0.954
Neutral detergent fiber	49.6	49.0	49.4	1.37	0.943
Gross energy	65.0	67.2	68.6	1.38	0.233
Metabolizable energy	12.8	12.8	12.8	0.11	0.986
Fecal metabolites
pH	6.72	6.81	6.85	0.085	0.573
Ammonia-N	2.96	2.58	2.93	0.287	0.608
Volatile fatty acids
Total	1,391	1,338	1,282	73.5	0.597
Acetate	887	861	819	51.8	0.661
Propionate	364	350	331	16.3	0.401
Iso-butyrate	16.0	14.9	15.7	0.745	0.572
Butyrate	94.0	87.0	81.5	5.38	0.312
Iso-valerate	19.1	16.3	18.2	0.679	0.051
Valerate	4.43	4.03	9.51	1.928	0.142
Iso-caproate	4.52	3.34	4.79	0.411	0.079
Caproate	1.55	0.900	1.52	0.224	0.128
Acetate:propionate	2.44	2.46	2.46	0.072	0.958

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