Effects of Particle Size of Alfalfa-Based Dairy Cow Diets on Site and Extent of Digestion
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Effects of ratio of alfalfa silage to alfalfa hay and forage particle size on nutrient intakes, site of digestion, rumen pools, and passage rate of ruminal contents were evaluated in a 4 x 4 Latin square design with a 2 x 2 factorial arrangement of treatments. The diets consisted of 60% barley-based concentrate and 40% forage made up either of 50:50 or 25:75 of alfalfa silage:alfalfa hay and alfalfa hay was either chopped or ground. Lactating dairy cows surgically fitted with ruminal and duodenal cannulas were used and offered ad libitum access to a total mixed ration. Intakes of nutrients were increased by increasing ratio of silage to hay but were not affected by particle size of forage. Change in ratio of silage to hay of diets did not affect site and extent of digestion. However, increased forage particle size of the diets improved digestibility of fiber and N in the total tract, and as well as digestibility of organic matter, starch, and acid detergent fiber in the intestine. There was a shift of starch digestion from the rumen to the intestine when forage particle size was increased, although total digestion of starch was not changed. Ruminal microbial protein synthesis and microbial efficiency also improved with increasing forage particle size. Cows fed ground hay versus chopped hay had significantly lower rumen wet mass regardless of the ratio of silage to hay. Reduced forage particle size also lowered ruminal nutrient pool size for cows fed the high silage diet. Ruminal passage rates of liquid and solid were decreased by reducing the ratio of silage to hay, and retention time of solids in the total tract was shortened by reducing forage particle size. These results indicate that manipulating ratio of silage to hay in the diets of dairy cows changed feed intake but had little effect on digestion. In contrast, increased forage particle size in dairy cow diets improved fiber digestion and microbial protein synthesis in the rumen, and shifted starch digestion from the rumen to the intestine. Dietary particle size, expressed as physically effective neutral detergent fiber, was a reliable indication of ruminal microbial protein synthesis and nutrient digestion.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".