¹Key Laboratory for Agro-Ecological Processes in Subtropical Region, and Hunan Research center of Livestock & Poultry Sciences, and South-Central Experimental Station of Animal Nutrition and Feed Science in Ministry of Agriculture, Institute of Subtropical Agriculture, The Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changsha, Hunan 410125, P.R. CHINA
²College of Animal Science and Technology, Hunan Agricultural University, Changsha, Hunan 410125, P.R. CHINA
³Institute of Animal Science of Tibet Academy of Agricultural and Animal Husbandry Sciences, Lhasa 850000, CHINA
⁴Hunan Co-Innovation Center of Animal Production Safety, CICAPS, Changsha, Hunan 410125, P.R. CHINA
⁵Department of Poultry, Faculty of Agriculture, Zagazig University, Zagazig 44511, EGYPT
⁶Postdoctoral Science Research Workstation, New Hope Group, Chengdu, Sichuan 610041, P.R. CHINA DOI : 10.9775/kvfd.2018.19941 The object of this study was to evaluate the effect of different sources and supplementation levels of yeast culture on in vitro fermentation characteristics of goats. The present study was performed in a 3×4 factorial design to examine the impacts of inclusion of three kinds of yeast culture (Se-enriched, Cr-enriched, Zn-enriched yeast culture) at four dose (0, 0.1%, 0.25%, 0.40% and 0.55%) on the in vitro fermentation characteristics of cereal straw. For maize stover, the results shown that the average values of in vitro gas production, DM and NDF disappearance, pH and the ratio of acetate to propionate were increased (P<0.05), while the concentration of ammonia nitrogen (NH3-N) and butyrate were decreased (P<0.05) by the supplementation of Se-enriched yeast culture (YC-Se) compared with that of Cr-enriched yeast culture (YC-Cr) and Zn-enriched yeast culture (YC-Zn). For rice straw, the in vitro gas production, DM disappearance and pH were increased (P<0.05), and the concentration of ammonia nitrogen was decreased by the supplementation of YC-Se, while the concentration of acetate, propionate, butyrate and total VFA (TVFA) were increased (P<0.05) by the supplementation of YC-Zn. The current results indicate that YC-Se is more preferred as yeast culture supplements, and its optimal dose should be 0.25% substrates for maize stover and 0.10% substrates for rice straw in vitro. The present positive in vitro results should be tested using in vivo experiments in future. Keywords : Yeast culture, in vitro fermentation, Maize stover, Rice straw