Effect of Partial Replacement of Steam Rolled Corn With Soybean Hulls or Prickly Pear Cactus in the Horse's Diet in the Presence of Live Saccharomyces cerevisiae on In Vitro Fecal Gas Production

The aim of the study was to evaluate the fecal fermentation of partial replacing steam rolled corn with soybean hulls (SH) or prickly pear cactus (PC) as energy source in horse diets, in the presence of Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Steam rolled corn was replaced with SH at 0% (control), 7.5% (SH75), and 15% (SH150) in the first trial, whereas it was replaced with PC at 0% (control; the same of the first trial), 7.5% (PC75), and 15% (PC150) in the second trial. Yeast of S. cerevisiae was added at 0, 2, and 4 mg/g dry matter (DM) of incubated substrates. Fecal inoculum was obtained from four adult English Thoroughbred horses fed on an amount of commercial concentrate and oat hay ad libitum. Interactions observed between PC rations and yeast doses for the asymptotic gas production (GP), the rate of GP and carbon dioxide (CO2) production during some incubation hours. Moreover, with no effect due to SH rations (P > .05), increased (P < .05) rate of GP was observed with the ration PC75 compared with other rations. Besides, PC75 and PC150 rations with 0 mg yeast/g DM linearly decreased (P < .05) CO2 production at some incubation hours. However, SH75 and SH150 ration had increased (P = .005) DM degradability (DMD). Yeast addition at 2 mg/g DM increased the asymptotic GP (P = .048) with the SH75 and PC150 rations. The level of 4 mg yeast/g DM increased the asymptotic GP (P = .048) from the SH150 ration. Yeast addition at 2 and 4 mg/g DM increased (P < .05) ​the asymptotic GP from PC75 and PC150 rations, respectively, with increasing DMD with the both doses. Yeast addition increased (P < .05) CO2 production from SH75, SH150, PC75, and PC150 rations. It could be concluded that SH and PC can replace steam rolled corn at levels of 7.5% to 15% without negative effect of fermentation kinetics and with better fermentation performance in the presence of yeast at 2 mg/g DM of substrates.