material being conveyed to the distal gastrointestinal tract . Previous authors have reported a depressive effect of diets containing elevated cellulose concentrations on
digestibility of N (Kiarie et al., 2007), of both dietary and endogenous origin (Furuya and Kaji, 1992). Therefore the provision
of purified -glucans to a wheat-based diet may offer a more efficacious method to beneficially modulate the contents of
the dGIT compared with a barley-based formulation, whereby a fermentable -glucan source may be provided without the
associated implications for a depressed CTTAD of N and potential formation of odorous metabolites