Effects of Lactobacillus buchneri as a silage inoculant and as a probiotic on feed intake,apparent digestibility and ruminal fermentation and microbiology in wethers fed low‐dry‐matter whole‐crop maize silage

Lactobacillus buchneri was investigated as a silage inoculant and as a probiotic on feed intake, apparent digestibility, and ruminal fermentation and microbiology in wethers fed low‐dry‐matter (DM) whole‐crop maize silage. Maize forage (279 g/kg DM) was ensiled without inoculant (untreated) and with L. buchneri CNCM I‐4323 at 1 × 10⁵ cfu/g fresh forage (inoculated). Six cannulated wethers were arranged in a double 3 × 3 Latin square and assigned to one of three diets: (i) untreated maize silage (untreated), (ii) inoculated maize silage (inoculated), and (iii) untreated maize silage with a daily dose of L. buchneri (1 × 10⁷ cfu/g supplied silage) injected directly into the rumen (LB‐probiotic). Wethers fed the inoculated diet had a higher (p = .050) DM intake (1.30% body weight [BW]) than wethers fed untreated and LB‐probiotic diets (1.17% and 1.18% BW respectively). The relative proportion of Ruminococcus flavefaciens (proportion of total estimated rumen bacterial 16S rDNA) in the rumen of wethers fed inoculated and LB‐probiotic diets (both 0.42%) tended (p = .098) to be lower than in the untreated diet (0.83%). Lactobacillus buchneri as a silage inoculant or as a probiotic had little effect on the variables measured in wethers.