• Journal of Life Science
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• v.19 no.11
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• pp.1538-1546
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• 2009

This study was conducted to estimate the in vitro fermentation characteristics and in situ degradabilities of total mixed rations fermented by the synbiotic co-cultures composed of various anaerobic microorganisms in the rumen of cow. Seventy two TMR bags (4 treatments $\times$ 6 fermentation days $\times$ 3 replications) were manufactured for in vitro and in situ experiments. The experiment was composed of four treatments including the control, the mould and bacteria synbiotics (T1), the mould and yeast synbiotics (T2) and the bacteria and yeast synbiotics (T3). Each treatment had six fermentation days (1, 3, 5, 7, 14, 21 day) with three replications. Two rumen cannulated Holstein cows (550 ㎏ of mean body wt) were used for in situ trial, and a total of 96 nylon bags were retrieved from the rumen according to eight fermentation times (1, 3, 6, 9, 18, 24, 48 and 72 hr). The mean fermentation temperatures of TMRs by supplementation of anaerobic micoorganism co-cultures ranged from $22.97^{\circ}C$ to $26.07^{\circ}C$, and tended to increase steadily during the entire period. pH values of the F-TMRs ranged from 4.39 to 4.98 and tended to decrease with the extension of the fermentation period, and decreased by supplementation of synbiotics (p<0.05). The ammonia concentrations of F-TMRs were not affected by addition of synbiotic co-cultures during the early fermentation period (within 7 days), but was lowest (p<0.05) in T3 during the late fermentation periods (after 14 days). Lactic acid concentration of F-TMR was lowest in T3 at 1 day of fermentation, but was not different from treatments in the other fermentation days. Microbial growth rates of F-TMR reached a peak at 7 days of fermentation, and afterward tended to decrease. In in situ experiment, the DM disappearance rates were higher in T1 than the control during early fermentation times (within 3 hours), but was vice versa at 48 hours of fermentation (p<0.05). There was no significant difference in effective DM degradability among treatments. NDF and ADF disappearance rates in situ were similar to those of DM. From the above results, the supplementation of synbiotics, particularly the mould and bacteria synbiotics, resulted in improving the pH and concentration of lactic acid of F-TMR as parameters of fermentation compare to the control, and also had higher in situ disappearance rates of DM, NDF and ADF than the control at early fermentation time. However, effective DM degradability was not affected by supplementation of synbiotics.