VPB 321: Animal Biotechnology (2+1)

STEPS TO OPTIMIZE RUMEN DIGESTION

• There are three steps to optimize digestion,
• Supplying the nutritional requirements of rumen microflora to ensure maximum microbial activity and microbial growth yield.
• Modifying microbial population (bacteria, protozoa and fungi) to select the species that are most suitable to supply biomass and metabolites that the host animal requires.
• Altering the physiology of the digestive tract (i.e., salivary secretion, rumen motility, rates of liquid-phase and particle-phase outflow).
• The first step requires that the known quantitative and qualitative needs of the ruminal microbial populations be met. This can be done by controlling the diet (nature, amount, physical form of feedstuff, balancing nutrients). The other two steps requires the manipulation of the rumen microbes.
• The primary objective of the manipulation of rumen organisms is to increase the rate and extent of digestibility of these fibrous feeds as this is a primary limiting factor.
• The fastest way to improve rumen function in an animal is to introduce digestion-enhancing bacterial species from other animals or to selectively increase populations of species that inhabit the rumen only at low levels.
• Rumen ecology may also be modified by altering the function of bacteria using genetic engineering techniques. Many approaches have been taken in attempts to transform rumen bacteria by introducing a foreign gene or genes into the bacteria.