Evaluation of LYSOFORTE Extend on Rumen Fermentation Parameters, Rumen and Total Tract Digestion, and Fatty Acid Digestion

Summary with Implications Supplemental fat fed in finishing diets in recent years has generally increased in price. This digestibility study evaluated LYSOFORTE Extend, a lysophospholipid based nutritional emulsifier, in beef finishing diets containing tallow or corn oil. Five ruminally and duodenally cannulated steers were used in a 5 × 5 Latin Square design. Treatments followed a 2 × 2 +1 factorial: 1) No Oil (negative control), 2) Corn Oil (3.5%), 3) Tallow (3.5%), 4) Corn Oil + LFE (8 g/d), and 5) Tallow + LFE (8 g/d). Cattle fed the negative control diet had greater dry matter intake than cattle consuming diets with supplemental fat but no LYSOFORTE Extend. But, when LYSOFORTE Extend was added to diets with corn oil and tallow, intake did not differ (P = 0.50) from the negative control. There was no difference in total tract dry matter (DM), organic matter (OM) or apparent energy digestibility across any of the 5 dietary treatments (P ≥ 0.23). The impact of LYSOFORTE Extend on rumen fermentation parameters, such as average pH and volatile fatty acid (VFA) concentration were limited. There was no difference in average pH (P ≥ 0.21) across treatments, but a main effect of LYSOFORTE Extend on total VFA concentration (P ≤ 0.05), where diets that included LYSOFORTE Extend had greater total VFA concentration than those without LYSOFORTE Extend. While supplemental fat reduced intake, when fed with LYSOFORTE Extend it appeared to mitigate this effect, which may warrant further research into this response.