Feeding slowly fermentable grains has the potential to ameliorate heat stress in grain-fed wethers

Abstract

During heat stress (HS), livestock reduce metabolic heat production by lowering activity and feed intake. Because this has obvious consequences for productivity, the aim of these experiments was to investigate nutritional methods for reducing digestive metabolic heat production, thereby allowing livestock more opportunity to dissipate excess heat. In the first experiment, the fermentation rates of corn and wheat grains were compared in an in vitro gas production system containing buffered rumen fluid. This experiment showed that corn had a slower (−15%; P < 0.001) rate of gas production than wheat and no differences in total amount of gas production after 24 h of incubation. In the second ex..