Rumen Contents and Ruminal Digesta Particle Size Distribution in Buffalo Steers Fed Three Different Size of Alfalfa

This study was conducted to investigate the effects of three sizes of alfalfa and time post-feeding on rumen contents and on particle size distribution of ruminal digesta. Three ruminally fistulated buffalo steers received a diet consisting just alfalfa that was harvested at 15% of flowering and chopped in three sizes. Individual small rectangular bales were chopped with a forage field harvester for theoretical cut length 19 and 10 mm for preparation of long and medium particle size, also the fine particles were prepared by milling. The geometric means and its standard deviation were 8.5, 5.5 and 2.5 mm; and 1.24, 1.16 and 1.06 mm, in coarse, medium and fine, respectively. The experimental design was a repeated 3&times;3 Latin squares with 21 day periods. The diets were offered twice daily at 09:00 and 21:00 h at ad libitum level. The rumens were evacuated manually at 3, 7.5 and 12h post-feeding and total ruminal contents separated into mat and bailable liquids. Dry matter weight distribution of total recovered particles was determined by a wet-sieving procedure and used to partition ruminal mat and bailable liquids among percentages of large (&ge;4.0 mm), medium (<4.0mm and &ge;1.18 mm), and fine (