Fig 3. The effect of exogenous lactobacilli addition on the viable number of total amylolytic bacteria in equine fecal cell suspensions.

Grain types included minimally processed, finely ground (2 mm screen) corn, oats and wheat at 1.6% w/v starch concentration. Treatments included initial (open bars; 0 h), control (black bars; substrate only), and the addition of L. acidophilus (green bars), L. buchneri (blue bars), L. reuteri (red bars) and Mixed (purple bars; all 3 at equal concentrations) at 10⁷ final concentration live or dead (autoclaved; corn only). Samples were taken after 24 h of incubation (37°C) for bacterial enumeration. The enumerations were performed in anaerobic liquid media with soluble starch as the growth substrate. The tubes were incubated (37°C, 3 d), and the final dilution exhibiting bacterial growth (visual examination) was recorded as the viable number. Hatched lines separate individual statistical comparisons. Means lacking a common letter are different between treatments within substrate (P < 0.05); Corn: treatment, P < 0.0001; Oats: treatment, P = 0.0033; Wheat: treatment, P < 0.0001; Pooled SEM Corn: treatment = 0.4513; Oats: treatment = 0.2582; Wheat: treatment = 0.2582 (log₁₀ transformed).