Ruminal fermentation pattern, bacterial community composition, and nutrient digestibility of Nellore cattle submitted to either nutritional restriction or intake of concentrate feedstuffs prior to adaptation period
The introduction of cattle into a feedlot includes a period where they adapt to high-concentrate diets. This adaptation period is critical to the success of incoming cattle, as they must adjust to both a new diet and environment. Incoming animals are typically reared on a variety of diets, ranging from poor quality grasses to grazing systems supplemented with concentrate feedstuffs. These disparate pre-adaptation diets present a challenge, and here, we sought to understand this process by evaluating the adaptation of Nellore calves raised on either grazing on poor quality grasses (restriction diet) or grazing systems supplemented with concentrate (concentrate diet). In this project, we took direct rumen samples via cannula and performed community sequencing by amplifying the V4 region of the 16S rRNA gene and using an Illumina MiSeq v2 2x250 kit.