Effect of Different Diet Formulas on Production Performance and Rumen Bacterial Diversity of Fattening Beef Cattle.

The effect of beef cattle (Angus vs. Simmental) feeds with various diet formulas on the production performance, blood biochemical indexes, beef quality, and rumen bacterial diversity were investigated. Corn silage, sorghum silage, and the mixture of corn silage and sorghum silage were used as experimental materials to compare the feeding effect of different proportions of feed. The results showed that fattening cattle fed diets containing 75% or 100% sweet sorghum (DMD and DME) had a daily gain of 0.85-0.92 kg. The fattening rate of cattle fed with 50% sweet sorghum (DMC) was 54.78%. There were no adverse effects on beef quality and blood physiological and biochemical indexes in each group. In terms of rumen bacterial diversity, the flora of rumen fluid mainly contains Firmicutes and Bacteroidetes. Prevotella and Succinic acid were the dominant groups in the known genera of rumen fluid bacteria. Compared with the cattle fed with corn silage alone, the growth performance, slaughter performance, blood physicochemical indexes, and rumen diversity of cattle fed with mixed silage of sweet sorghum and corn showed similar or excellent traits.