Saliva neutralizes the acids produced during fermentation and helps to maintain an ideal environment for bacteria growth. Production of saliva can be encouraged by controlling the ruminant's diet. The more a cow chews, the more saliva it produces. The amount of time a cow spends chewing is influenced by feeding management practices and the nature of the diet. The order in which feed ingredients are fed, the particle size of the feeds, the number of times during the day cows are fed, and the type of feed consumed can all directly affect saliva production.
Long hay stimulates the greatest amount of chewing, rumination, and saliva production.
Feeding forages high in cell wall content or neutral detergent fiber would tend to increase rumination time. Rumination may be significantly reduced, for example, by feeding high amounts of concentrates and finely chopped forages. High moisture feeds such as pasture or silage can reduce saliva produced per pound of dry matter intake by 50 percent. Grains or pelleted feeds can reduce the flow to 20 percent of that on a long-hay diet. Saliva production can drop dramatically if the cow does not receive adequate effective fiber, which is defined as a combination of forage particle size and forage neutral detergent fiber intake.