Supplementing NSP enzymes in high concentrate diets can prevent foamy rumen bloat in goats

Abstract Ruminants fed high concentrate diets (HCD) are highly susceptible to foamy rumen bloat, but up to now the cause of rumen foam formation is unknown, making it difficult to prevent effectively. Exp. 1 of this study investigated the relationship between saccharide content in rumen fluid (RF) and foaming performance, and explored the effect of supplementing non-starch polysaccharides (NSP) enzymes to RF on foaming performance. The RF of 16 HCD-fed goats was used as experimental material to correlate RF viscosity, foaming performance, and saccharide content. Subsequently, the RF from 4 goats with severe rumen bloat was collected as experimental material, divided into 5 equal portions and randomly assigned to 5 treatment groups, namely adding 0, 100, 300, 500, and 700 mg/kg NSP enzymes to the RF. The viscosity and foaming performance of the RF, as well as the saccharide content, were determined for each treatment group. The results showed that polysaccharide was significantly and positively correlated with viscosity and foaming performance (P 0.05). In summary, polysaccharide is an important factor affecting the foaming performance of RF, and supplementation of NSP enzymes in HCD can prevent the occurrence of rumen bloat.