Intake, Nutrient Apparent Digestibility, and Ruminal Constituents of Crossbred Dorper × Santa Inês Sheep Fed Diets with Babassu Mesocarp Flour

Table 4

Ruminal concentrations of short-chain fatty acids (mol/100 moles), ruminal pH, and ammonia nitrogen (mg⋅dL⁻¹) by crossbred lambs fed diets containing increasing levels of babassu mesocarp flour.

Item^1	Diets^2				SEM^3
	0	10	20	30
pH^5,6	6.41	6.39	6.36	6.35	0.035	0.329	0.860	0.091
NH3-N (mg/dL)	22.20	22.25	19.83	19.80	0.872	0.033	0.6920	0.2597
Acetate^7	63.79	63.64	68.05	67.86	0.380	<0.001	0.551	0.078
Propionate^5,8	20.78	21.55	19.15	19.64	0.262	0.238	<0.001	0.057
Isobutyrate^5,6,9	1.81	1.36	0.89	0.80	0.071	<0.001	0.738	0.335
Butyrate^5	9.67	9.90	9.70	8.98	0.181	0.746	0.105	0.584
Isovalerate^5,6,10	2.92	1.93	1.28	1.02	0.106	<0.001	0.505	0.375
Valerate^5,11	1.64	1.36	1.00	0.81	0.067	0.001	0.358	0.445
Total (mmol⋅L^−1)	72.13	67.18	68.56	71.34	2.11	0.975	0.581	0.874
A : P ratio^12	3.11	2.96	3.63	3.51	0.058	0.029	0.945	0.053

NH₃-N: ruminal concentration of ammonia N; A : P: acetate : propionate molar concentration ratio.
Addition of 0, 10, 20, and 30% of babassu mesocarp flour in the diets.
SEM: standard error mean.
Linear, quadratic, and cubic effect.
Hour effect.
Interaction between diet and hour.
= 63,525 + 0,1521; = 0,7700.
; .
= 1,7403 − 0,0351; = 0,9080.
= 2,7431 − 0,0618; = 0,8385.
= 1,6307 − 0,0291; = 0,8975.
= 3,0061 + 0,0208; = 0,6970.