β-Carotene

Yeah, so a couple papers here.

One looking at, um, well, does, does beta carotene from forages degrade during that rumen fermentation process? And so is that part of the reason that we have low vitamin A in colostrum going to cows or, um, or going to calves, sorry, there in, in those spring calving herds through the winter? Or, and, and then again looking at our supplemental forms, uh, retinol esters are our typical supplemental forms, and so what's the, what's the degradation of those forms during that rumen fermentation process? Um, and so, um, are we getting enough into those cows when we're, when we're giving supplement and thinking about factors that affect that?

Because vitamin A is important for a l- a, a lot of activities that-

Mm

So they f- they fed, um, some Brahman steers and some goats, um, alfalfa hay diets, and then they collected these, these, uh, steers and goats had a rumen cannula, so they were able to collect rumen fluid from those.

And then in, they, uh, took that rumen fluid and incubated it in a flask in the lab, and they added, um, a couple of different, uh, or, or sorry, they, they added alfalfa, so they added alfalfa, like ground, finely ground alfalfa to those flasks.

And then they evaluated the, the breakdown or the disappearance of beta carotene, lutein, uh, total carotenoids, some other things.

And we're gonna, we're gonna focus mainly just talking about beta carotene here for this, this, uh, episode, but they did that.