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

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%; < 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 experiment, we hypothesized that the lower rate of fermentation of corn would reduce metabolic heat load in wethers and, in turn, improve tolerance to HS. Twenty-two Merino × Poll Dorset wethers were housed in 2 climate-controlled rooms and were fed either corn grain plus forage (CD; 39% starch) or wheat grain plus forage (WD; 37% starch) during 3 experimental periods: period 1 (P1), which consisted of 7 d of thermoneutral conditions (18 to 21°C and 40 to 50% relative humidity [RH]) and restricted feed intake (1.3 times maintenance); period 2 (P2), which consisted of 7 d of HS (28 to 38°C and 30 to 50% RH) and restricted feed intake; and period 3 (P3), which consisted of 7 d of HS as in P2 with unrestricted feed intake (1.5 times maintenance) in a randomized control experiment. Water was offered ad libitum. The level of HS was quantified by increases in rectal temperature (RT), respiration rate (RR), and left and right flank skin temperature (LFT and RFT, respectively) and blood acid-base balance. Rectal temperature, RR, LFT, and RFT were elevated ( < 0.001) during HS, especially when wethers had unrestricted feed intake (P3). Wethers fed CD had lower RR, RT, LFT, and RFT ( < 0.001) than wethers fed WD, and this benefit was greatest during HS (P2 and P3). The reduction in RR with CD resulted in less CO exhalation (greater partial pressure of CO2) and greater HCO3 ( < 0.05) than with WD, indicating reduced efforts to dissipate heat by evaporative heat loss via panting. The greatest heat from fermentation was apparent in WD wethers, which had elevated LFT compared with RFT ( < 0.001). Crucially, this large difference was not observed with the CD wethers, indicating that the slow rate of fermentation of CD was expressed as low heat released during feed fermentation in the rumen. These data demonstrated that feeding CD may be a useful management strategy to reduce the impact of high environmental heat loads in sheep.