Ball milling pretreatment of corn straw and Pediococcus acidilactici fermentation for non-ruminant diet

Abstract

A new strategy was proposed to improve the utilization rate of corn straw by making non-ruminant feed products. The corn straw was ball milled, and the crushed straw was subjected to solid-state fermentation. After ball milling, the particle size of corn straw decreased significantly from 4.85 ± 0.07 cm to 10–100 μm, the content of neutral detergent fiber and acid detergent fiber decreased by 1.3% and 3.5%, respectively, and the total soluble sugar content increased by 16.2 mg/g. At the same time, the straw treated by ball milling as substrate could promote the rapid growth of Pediococcus acidilactici R30, the increase of organic acid production and further improvement of other nutrients during solid-state fermentation. In conclusion, the fermented straw products after ball milling could significantly improve the performance of pig feed in terms of digestibility and nutritional value, and better meet the feed needs of non-ruminant animals while saving resources.