It is generally believed that ruminants are better able to degrade highly fibrous feeds than equines. To determine if this is due to differences between the microflora of the rumen and the equine hind-gut, oatfeed (OF), naked oats (NO), soya hulls (SH) and unmolassed sugar beet pulp (SB) were incubated with inocula prepared from bovine rumen digesta or equine caecal digesta.

OF, NO, SH, and SB were ground to pass through a 1 mm mesh screen and incubated for 72 hours, at 39°C with inocula prepared from either rumen (R) or caecal (C) digesta. Rumen digesta was obtained from three hay-fed, ruminally - fistulated Hereford x Friesian steers, and caecal digesta from three hay-fed, caecally -fistulated, Welsh-cross ponies. Gas production throughout the incubation was measured using the pressure transducer technique (Theodorou et al, 1994). After the incubation, VFA production was measured and residue weights were calculated for each feedstuff.