Table 7.

Mean ruminal fermentation characteristics in feedlot cattle fed diets varying in percentage of barley silage for samples taken 0, 3, 6, 12, and 18 h postfeeding on day 17 of the study

	Barley silage, % of dietary DM					P-value1
Item	0	4	8	12	SEM	Silage	Linear	Quadratic
SCFA
Total3, mM	133	137	137	127	5.4	0.29	0.24	0.44
Acetate3,4, %	42.6	46.6	46.4	49.5	1.32	0.005	0.074	0.005
Propionate3, %	44.3	39.8	38.8	35.3	1.95	0.002	0.052	0.007
Butyrate3, %	7.3	8.7	9.2	10.5	0.86	0.003	0.077	0.013
Isobutyrate3, %	0.740	0.803	0.826	0.916	0.0980	0.19	0.56	0.18
Valerate, %	3.37	2.38	2.26	1.77	0.300	0.002	0.045	0.003
Isovalerate3, %	1.24	1.56	1.78	2.23	0.268	0.029	0.35	0.088
Caproate3, %	0.335	0.211	0.259	0.231	0.0433	0.019	0.047	0.009
Acetate:propionate3	0.98	1.22	1.29	1.50	0.109	0.005	0.12	0.020
Lactate3, mM	0.519	0.531	0.533	0.478	0.0895	0.76	0.60	0.60
NH3-N3, mg/dL	6.81	6.17	7.03	6.75	1.070	0.93	0.98	0.63

¹ P-values indicate overall silage, linear, and quadratic effects.

³There were significant effects of sampling time (P < 0.001).

⁴There was a significant silage × time of sampling interaction (P < 0.05).