Multi-kingdom microbial shifts and associated functional variation in the rumen of lactating dairy cows: II. Effect of dietary neutral detergent fiber and starch ratio

To investigate the effect of dietary NDF:starch ratio on the composition of the rumen microbiota of lactating dairy cows, four total mixed rations were formulated with different NDF:starch ratios: 0.86 (T1), 1.18 (T2), 1.63 (T3) and 2.34 (T4), by varying the levels of corn silage, oat hay and corn