Table 4.

Fermentation characteristics and protozoa concentration in the rumen fluid of sheep fed a diet containing eucalyptus oil (EUC) and anise oil (ANI)

Items	Treatment1			SEM	P value
	control	EUC	ANI		Treat	Time	Treat × time
pH	5.87	6.00	6.07	0.130	0.57	0.35	0.84
NH3-N, mM	15.4b	19.4a	17.7a	1.21	<0.01	<0.01	0.43
Total VFA, mM	84.5	80.0	80.0	4.94	0.72	0.89	0.18
Molar proportion, mM/100 mM
Acetate	60.8	61.7	61.0	2.14	0.92	0.58	0.77
Propionate	23.7	18.6	22.8	3.08	0.20	0.02	0.90
Butyrate	13.1	17.0	13.2	2.07	0.09	0.02	0.95
Isobutyrate	0.51	0.76	0.85	0.219	0.50	0.01	0.95
Valerate	0.74	0.71	0.75	0.076	0.84	0.25	0.70
Isovalerate	1.03	1.33	1.39	0.317	0.58	0.01	0.89
Acetate:propionate	2.68	3.47	3.12	0.476	0.29	0.06	0.84
Total protozoa, ×105/mL	6.00	5.80	4.50	1.170	0.41	0.10	0.80
% of total
Entodinium	82.8	82.9	77.3	3.56	0.21	0.62	0.97
Diplodinium	10.6	10.3	13.4	1.53	0.30	0.48	0.50
Isotricha	4.24	8.95	8.01	1.563	0.62	0.44	0.45
Ophryosolex	2.36	3.85	1.29	1.274	0.21	0.45	0.71

^a,bMeans in the same row not bearing a common superscript letter are significantly different (P < 0.05).

¹Three treatments: control (fed a control diet, consisted of corn concentrate, soybean meal, and Chinese wildrye hay with concentrate:forage = 60:40), EUC treatment (control diet supplemented with 0.5 g/d/head EUC), ANI treatment (control diet supplemented with 0.5 g/d/head ANI).