Table 4.

Effects of probiotics and CMP on rumen fermentation in lambs.

Items	Control	Probiotics	CMP	Compound	SEM	P-value
pH value	6.85a	6.63b	6.87a	6.66b	0.03	0.002
NH3-N, mg/100 ml	24.59	23.27	21.43	17.25	1.05	0.058
MCP, mg/ml	0.21b	0.54a	0.20b	0.18b	0.04	<0.001
acetic acid, mmol/L	29.42	25.87	24.63	31.04	1.55	0.442
propionic acid, mmol/L	8.16	7.61	9.03	9.46	0.41	0.383
butyric acid, mmol/L	6.24	6.90	6.23	5.66	0.34	0.657
Acetic acid/propionic acid	3.63a	3.38ab	2.74c	3.23b	0.10	0.001
T-VFA, mmol/L	43.82	40.37	39.90	46.16	2.11	0.710

^{a, b}Means within a row with no common superscript differ significantly (P < 0.05).

Control: the basal diet (n = 5); probiotics: supplemented with 0.1% probiotics (consists of Bacillus licheniformis, Bacillus subtilis, and Lactobacillus plantarum at a ratio of 1:1:0.5) in the basal diet; CMP: supplemented with 0.1% Chinese medicine polysaccharides in the basal diet, which come from the mixture of Lycium barbarum and Astragalus membranaceus in the ratio of 2:1, and in which the content of polysaccharides was 114.7 mg/g; compound: supplemented with 0.1% probiotics and 0.1% Chinese medicine polysaccharides in the basal diet.

All traits in this table were analyzed with cattle as the experimental unit (n = 5).

NH3–N, ammonia–N; MCP, microbial protein; T-VFA, total volatile fatty acid.