Ruminal Characteristics and Bloat Incidence in Cattle as Influenced by Feeding Synthetic Saliva Salts and Sodium Chloride

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Abstract
Feeding excessive sodium chloride or a mixture of synthetic saliva salts to steers did not appear to influence the incidence of feed-lot bloat. Water consumption was increased by feeding the saliva salts and increased further by feeding 5% sodium chloride in the ration. The pH of ruminal samples was higher when synthetic saliva salts were fed. There was no significant correlation between ruminal pH and bloat. Surface tension was neither altered by treatment nor correlated with bloat. Microbial activity of ruminal samples was decreased by feeding the combination of sodium chloride and saliva salts. There was no significant correlation between bloat and microbial activity. Neither the total concentration of ruminal fatty acids nor the proportion of the acids appeared to be affected by treatments. However, certain correlations were found between bloat and the volatile fatty acids in the rumen. Copyright © . .