valorisation of spent coffee grounds as functional feed ingredient improves productive performance of Latxa dairy ewes

Spent Coffee Grounds Alter Bacterial Communities in Latxa Dairy Ewes

“…SCG, as a by-product of the coffee industry, has been previously suggested as an alternative feed source for livestock with not very promising results [ 24 , 25 , 26 , 27 ]. Díaz de Otálora et al [ 5 ] presented a new strategy of using SCG in animal nutrition. These authors formulated SCG in the concentrate at low doses, using SCG as a functional ingredient, taking advantage of some chemical constituents of SCG like coffee melanoidins and phenolic compounds which have been proposed as antimicrobials [ 28 ] and the potential beneficial effect of these active compounds on rumen microorganism and therefore ruminal fermentation.…”

“…The design of the experiment and animal assignment to treatments was previously described in [ 5 ]. Briefly, 36 lactating Latxa ewes were used in a randomized block design and were equally distributed into four experimental groups that either received no SCG (0; n = 9), 30 g/kg dry matter (DM) SCG/d (30; n = 9), 50 g/kg DM SCG/d (50; n = 9), and 100 g/kg DM SCG/d (100; n = 9).…”

“…The analysis of VFA (acetic, propionic, butyric, isobutyric, valeric and isovaleric) of rumen samples was performed by gas chromatography as described in [ 5 ]. Quantification expressed in mmol/L was done using an external calibration curve based on standards.…”

“…For instance, polyphenols like those present in SCG are known to interact with rumen microbiota, affecting rumen fermentation and even lipid metabolism by depressing the biohydrogenation of unsaturated fatty acids (UFA) [ 4 ]. As a consequence, these by-products have been used as functional ingredients in dairy sheep formulations [ 5 ]. According to these authors, the inclusion of SCG up to 100 g/kg in the concentrate modified the fermentation pattern towards increased branched-chain volatile fatty acids (BCVFA), acetic and butyric acid proportions in the rumen resulting in improvements of milk yields and quality.…”

“…To the best of the authors knowledge, the effects of SCG on rumen microbial populations have not been reported in the literature. Therefore, the current study was performed as an accompaniment to [ 5 ], based on the hypothesis that the observed shift towards a greater acetic and butyric acid content is modulated by alterations in the ruminal bacterial community.…”