COMPARISON OF MICROBIOLOGICAL AND FERMENTATION PARAMETERS OBTAINED WITH AN IMPROVED RUMEN IN-VITRO TECHNIQUE WITH THOSE OBTAINED IN-VIVO

The aim of the present work was to develop and evaluate a rapid in vit ro technique to study the activity of rumen micro-organisms and to est imate the nutritive value of feeds. The rumen culture apparatus descri bed here is essentially a batch system, modified in order to obtain co nditions of strict anaerobiosis and the balanced growth of all the mic robial forms present in the mixed rumen inoculum. Validation of this t echnique was carried out by comparing studies run simultaneously in vi vo and in vitro, analysing microbial flora composition, biochemical pa rameters of rumen fluid and feed degradability. At the different incub ation periods studied, degradability and biochemical parameters had ve ry similar trends in the two systems and the microbiological analysis did not show any significant (P>0.05) differences between the in vivo and the in vitro approaches. The in vitro system described showed the possibility to maintain, for the time studied, a balanced microbial co mposition, which represents the equilibrium found in the animals. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V.