Chemical composition, in vitro digestibility, and storability of selected agro-industrial by-products: Alternative ruminant feed ingredients in Israel.

The global demand for animal-based products is rising in the face of dwindling feed resources, and yet a huge pool of agro-industrial by-products (AIBPs) are generated, underutilized, and improperly deposited to landfills leading to environmental pollution. Ruminants have a special microbiome that can bioprocess and convert human inedible fibrous material into meat and milk, which appears as a great opportunity to simultaneously reduce pollution while promoting food security. In this study, we collected 15 domestically produced AIBPs from various regions of Israel during both winter and summer seasons to examine their potential as ruminant feed alternatives.

Reducing dietary sodium of dairy cows fed a low-roughages diet affect intake and feed efficiency, but not yield.

Wastewater from dairy farms has become a major environmental and economical concern. Sodium residue in treated and untreated wastewater from dairy farms used for irrigation can lead to soil and groundwater salinization, with the risk of soil degradation. We examined the effect of reducing sodium fed to mid to late lactating cows from 0.

Microbiome niche modification drives diurnal rumen community assembly, overpowering individual variability and diet effects.

Niche modification is a process whereby the activity of organisms modifies their local environment creating new niches for other organisms. This process can have a substantial role in community assembly of gut microbial ecosystems due to their vast and complex metabolic activities. We studied the postprandial diurnal community oscillatory patterns of the rumen microbiome and showed that metabolites produced by the rumen microbiome condition its environment and lead to dramatic diurnal changes in community composition and function.

Effect of feeding ensiled mixture of pomegranate pulp and drier feeds on digestibility and milk performance in dairy cows.

Based on a previous ensiling study in glass silos of various pomegranate pulp (PP) mixtures, fresh pomegranate pulp (PP) was mixed with drier feeds including soy hulls and corn silage (40:35:25 on DM basis) and ensiled in 32 pressed bales (700 kg each) wrapped with stretch polyethylene film. This ensiled pomegranate pulp mixture (PPM) was included in lactating cow total mixed ration (TMR) at a level of 20% of DM (PPM-TMR). Performance and digestion experiment was conducted with two groups of 21 milking cows each, fed individually one of the two TMR: 1.