The objectives of this research were to evaluate the effects of two forage levels and two experimental periods on the microbial efficiency, ruminal ammonia concentration, the ruminal pH, duodenal nitrogen (N) flux and digestibility. Four Holstein steers, two years old and 340 kg of body weight, ruminally and duodenally cannulated, were used. The experimental design was a 4 x 4 latin square and animals received four treatments as folowing: two levels of forage (70 and 30%) and two experimental periods (14 and 21 days). There were effects of the forage level on the ruminal ammonia concentrations and pH. There was effect of experimental period on the intake of N. The apparent microbial efficiency synthesis ranged from 29.3 to 32.0 g microbial N/ kg OMDR. The minimum pH for high forage diet (70%) was 6.5 and for low forage diet (30%) was 6.2. The maximum ruminal ammonia concentration of 16.9 mg/100 mL was obtained for the level of 70% of forage and 18.9 mg/100 mL of ruminal fluid to the level of 30% of forage.
ammonia; experimental period; forage level; nitrogen; pH
