Fermentation of Whole Grain Sorghum (Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench) with Different Dry Matter Concentrations: Effect on the Apparent Total Tract Digestibility of Energy, Crude Nutrients and Minerals in Growing Pigs
, Julia Slama 1, Daniel Brugger 2, Karin Leitner 3, Karl Schedle 3, Gabriela Wetscherek-Seipelt 3 and Wolfgang Wetscherek 3Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
In this resubmission authors answer the comments I have made on the first submission. I have no further questions.
Reviewer 2 Report
I congratulate the authors for the detailed and clear response to my comments and I recommend the manuscript for publication.
No further comments
This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The conducted research concerns an extremely important problem which is the diversification of feed sources for pigs and other animal species.
Research has confirmed that it is possible. The obtained results indicate that the use of sorghum in the feeding of pigs not only replaces other types of cereals but allows for better production results.
It would be good to continue research in terms of not only weight gain, but also the quality of obtained products and the health of animals.
It would be important to assess the possible impact on reproductive rates.
The work contains a properly constructed introduction, material and methods. Appropriate statistical methods were used. The results are presented clearly and unambiguously. The discussion confirms the purposefulness of the research and the results obtained with the hypothesis.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer 1, please find attached our comments.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Generally a good report of potential use of sorghum in swine nutrition.
My comments are within the attached document, since no line numbers were present the comments are highlighted.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
Dear Reviewer 2, please find attached our comments.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
It’s an original work about the use of fermented sorghum grain in pig feeding. The study is based on classic digestibility measures to estimate the nutritive values of fermented sorghum grain. Results are interesting and have practical importance. Experimental design is adequate to the purpose of the study.
I have the following comments:
I don’t understand the table 1. The study uses 3 different fermented grain sorghum. So how can the chemical composition of the test diets be the same for all the grains?
Why propionic acid and pH were not analyzed. pH values are important to access the quality of the fermented grains.
The composition of sorghum grains before fermentation should be given. This information is important to understand the differences between the 3 fermented grains.
Information about propionic acid and pH has to be included in table 2.
Lines 213-214: It’s true that the ATTD of starch differs significantly between diets. Nevertheless, the difference is very low and has no nutritional consequence. Discuss this.
Lines 227-228: Why DE was estimated. From GE and ATTD of GE the DE value of fermented sorghum grains can be calculated.
Table 4 DE of S2 and S3 are higher than S1. How to explain this? S1 has high ATTD of GE than S3 (table 3).
A discussion about the fermentative conditions is needed. Are the levels of C2 and C4 expected and adequate? Does the NH3 levels indicate no protein degradation by Clostridia? What about pH?
Author Response
Dear Reviewer 3, please find attached our comments.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
