Table 8.

Ruminal digesta weight and absorptive capacity in feedlot cattle fed diets varying in percentage of barley silage

	Barley silage, % of dietary DM					P-value1
Item	0	4	8	12	SEM	Silage	Linear	Quadratic
Digesta, kg
Total	41.4	42.5	43.2	45.6	2.21	0.064	0.60	0.10
DM pool	6.55	6.88	6.40	6.50	0.570	0.71	0.97	0.50
Liquid pool	34.9	35.6	36.8	39.1	1.75	0.024	0.56	0.11
Absolute absorption, mmol/h
Total SCFA2	728	686	758	804	41.0	0.20	0.87	0.96
Acetate	389	370	405	423	22.4	0.35	0.96	0.98
Propionate	240	225	249	268	13.8	0.14	0.77	0.90
Butyrate	99	91	104	113	6.5	0.11	0.78	0.92
Fractional absorption, %/h
Total SCFA	43.8	41.7	46.4	49.3	2.60	0.17	0.99	0.85
Acetate	41.2	39.6	43.5	46.1	2.37	0.25	0.97	0.83
Propionate	47.4	45.1	50.2	53.3	3.05	0.18	0.98	0.88
Butyrate	46.5	43.2	50.1	53.7	3.28	0.10	0.99	0.96
Urinary Cr output, mg/48 h	436	415	411	392	54.7	0.96	0.83	0.71

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

²Total SCFA = acetate + propionate + butyrate.