Effects of Barley Silage Particle Size with Two Levels of Concentrate, Beet Bulp Levels and Grain Levels on Dry Matter Intake, Digestibility, Ruminal Parameters, and Feed Intake Behavior in Sheep

Subject Areas :

M.M. Sharifi-Hoseini ¹ , O. Dayani ² , P. Dadvar ³

1 - Department of Animal Science, College of Agriculture, Shahid Bahonar University of Kerman, Kerman, Iran
2 - Department of Animal Science, College of Agriculture, Shahid Bahonar University of Kerman, Kerman, Iran
3 - Kerman Agricultural and Natural Resources Research and Education Center, Kerman, Iran

Received: 2024-01-15 Accepted : 2024-07-08 Published : 2024-09-01

Keywords: barley grain, chewing activity, digestibility, microbial protein synthesis, NH3-N,

Abstract :

Three experiments were conducted to investigate effects of particle size and levels of barley silage with different levels of concentrate, non-forage fiber, and grain on intake, digestibility, ruminal parameters, and feeding behavior on sheep In all experiments, silages were prepared as the size of large and short particle size (16 and 8 mm, respectively). The barley silage particle size was examined with two levels of concen-trate as the first experiment, with two levels of non-forage fiber sources as the second experiment and with two levels of barley grain as the third experiment. In each experiment, eight rams were used in a completely randomized design with a 2 × 2 factorial method in four 21-day periods. In experiment 1, dry matter intake was higher in the diet with 40 percentage concentrate compared to 60 percentage concentrate (P<0.01). Rumen pH decreased in diets with small silage particle size and high concentrate at two and four hours after feeding. Microbial protein synthesis increased in diets with small silage particle size and diet with 60 per-centage concentrate (P<0.04 and P<0.02, respectively). In experiment 2, neutral detergent fiber (NDF) in-take and digestibility were higher in diets with 20 percentage sugar beet pulp (P<0.05 and P<0.05, respec-tively). Rumen pH was lower in diets with 20 percentage sugar beet pulp after two and four hours of feed-ing (P=0.05 and P<0.05, respectively). In experiment 3, rumen pH was lower in diets with 40 percentage barley grain and small particle size silage at two and four hours after feeding. In all three experiments, the time of eating, rumination and chewing activity were higher in diets with large silage particle size. Geomet-ric mean was higher in three experiments in diets with long silage. The results suggest that barley silage shows promise for use in combination with other feedstuffs to potentially enhance animal performance and rumen health.

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