Studies on the microbial flora of the large intestine of the horse by continuous culture in an artificial colon

The use of a continuous culture artificial colon is described in experiments with caecal and dorsal and ventral colonic contents from the horse. The activity of the system was measured by volatile fatty acid estimation and the percentage of hay and cellulose digested was calculated. The vitamin B₁₂ (cyanocobalamin) content of the continuous culture and the amount synthesised by individual bacteria isolated from the system and directly from the colonic content, was estimated.