Effects of synchronising dietary nitrogen and energy supply in diets with a similar carbohydrate composition on rumen fermentation and microbial protein synthesis in sheep

Abstract

The recently introduced metabolisable protein system for ruminants (Webster 1992) relates microbial nitrogen production to daily supply of fermentable metabolisable energy and effective rumen degradable protein but does not consider the effect of the pattern of supply of nutrients to rumen microbes on their efficiency and growth. However, synchronising the hourly supply of nitrogen and energy yielding substrates to rumen micro-organisms has been shown to increase the efficiency of microbial protein synthesis (Sinclair et al. 1993). The objective of the current experiment was to examine the effects of synchronising the hourly supply of energy and nitrogen in diets with a similar carbohydrate composition but differing in the rate of protein degradation, on rumen fermentation and microbial protein synthesis in sheep.