Effects of grass hay proportion in a corn silage-based diet on rumen digesta kinetics and digestibility in dairy cows

In this study, we aimed to evaluate the effects of six levels of orchardgrass hay (GH) proportion (0%, 10%, 20%, 30%, 40% or 50% of dry matter) in finely chopped corn silage (CS)-based diets on digesta kinetics of CS and GH in the rumen. Six non-lactating, rumen-cannulated Holstein cows were used in a 6 × 6 Latin square design. Ruminal digesta kinetics was measured by ruminal dosing of feed particle markers (dysprosium for CS, erbium for GH) followed by fecal sampling. The increase of GH proportion had a quadratic effect (P < 0.01) on total tract digestibility of neutral detergent fiber (NDF) and acid detergent fiber. The proportion of GH did not affect the particle size distribution of rumen digesta, total weight of dry matter or NDF in the rumen. The rates of large particle size reduction in the rumen for CS tended to increase linearly with increasing GH proportion (P = 0.077). A quadratic effect (P < 0.05) was found with increasing the GH proportion for the ruminal passage rate of small GH particles, but not for CS particles. The results suggested that associative effects between CS and GH could be generated on rumen digesta kinetics when cows were fed a CS-based diet with an increased proportion of GH.