Thirty six male Chall lambs (four-month old and 26 ±1.5 kg body weight) were randomly assigned into four treatments (nine lambs per treatment) to study the effect of Powerfeed® (a commercial mixture made from wheat processing by-product and wheat bran) on weight gain, feed intake, feed conversion ratio, serum sodium and potassium concentration and urine pH. Lambs in control group were fed with a total mixed ration based of alfalfa and barley grain. Barley grain was replaced with Powerfeed® (PF) at levels of 4, 8 and 12 in treatments 2, 3 and 4, respectively. The experiment lasted for 105 days comprising 15 days of adaptation period and 90 days finishing period. No significant differences were observed in weight gain, feed intake, feed conversion ratio, serum sodium and potassium concentration and urine pH of lambs in control group when compared to other treatments. In conclusion, Powerfeed® can be used as partial replacement of barley grain in total mixed rations of finishing lambs. Manuscript profile

Twenty-four 35-day-old lambs were distributed to a completely randomized design with 3 treatments to study the effects of number of feeding buckets per pen on performance, haematology and behaviour indicators. Treatments consisted of 8 (T1), 4 (T2) or 2 (T3) feeding buckets/pen (8 lambs/pen). During the experiment, concentrate was fed at 08:30 in individual feeders. Daily dry matter intake (DMI) and average daily gain (ADG) were recorded weekly. Blood samples were taken from all lambs at the time that animal allocated to experimental diet and at the end of the first, second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth weeks and analyzed for haematological parameters. Maintenance and social behaviours were registered based on the methods of scan sampling. Decreasing number of feeding buckets per pen resulted to low overall DMI and ADG (P<0.05). However, feed conversion ratio (FCR) and haematological parameters were not affected by treatments. As the number of feeding buckets per pen decreased, the lambs have low eating and ruminating but high walking and playing behaviour (P<0.01). Decreasing the number of feeding buckets per pen resulted in increase in the number of attempts to access occupied feeder, displacements among lambs from feed containers and occupying feeder (by two or more lambs) (P<0.01). It seems that increasing social pressure and feeding competition between lambs could result to low DMI, ADG and welfare indicators. Manuscript profile

This study was conducted to compare the effect of organic versus inorganic sources of trace elements (Zn, Cu, Mn and Co) on nutrient digestibility in lambs and in vitro gas production parameters. In experiment 1, 18 Zandi male lambs (initial body weight (BW), 28.5±1.4 kg) were randomly assigned to either a basal diet with no trace mineral supplement (control diet), basal diet supplemented with trace minerals sulfates, basal diet supplemented with mineral-amino acid complex. In experiment 2, in vitro gas production was used to estimate in vitro fermentation parameters of the experimental treatments. The digestibility of dry matter, organic matter, and crude protein (CP) were not affected by treatments. However, supplementation with either mineral supplements decreased digestibility of neutral detergent fiber (NDF) (P<0.05). Organic mineral supplementation decreased rate of gas production (P<0.05), however asymptotic gas production (b) and effective digestibility were not different among the groups. Results of this study show that supplementation of trace elements does not affect the in vitro ruminal fermentation parameters and nutrients digestibility. Manuscript profile

The present study was conducted to evaluate the effect of parenteral supplementation of cobalt, copper and iron in late pregnancy on ewe hematology parameters and lamb vigour. Twenty ewes were allocated to one of two groups (n=10). In the test group, on day 120 ofpregnancy, cobalt, copper and iron were injected at a dose of 0.1 mL/kg BW (Fercobsang, France, cobalt gluconate 5 mg/100 mL, copper gluconate 0.5 mg/100 mLand ferrous citrate 1000 mg/100 mL). Ewes in the control group received equal amounts of normal saline as placebo. Group had no significant effect on ewe hematological parameters (P>0.05).There were no significant effects of parenteral mineral supplementation on lamb birth weight, rectal temperature and weaning weight after birth. Lamb viabilities are reported as scores as these gave a true representation of the effects of treatment on underlying measurements. However, there were no differences between groups in lamb vigour and sucking assistance score. It seems that using of additional trace elements in late pregnancy could be effective only in deficiency situations. Manuscript profile

An in vitro gas production technique was used to evaluate the effects of different adsorbents on the gas production parameters of lead-exposed diet. Ruminal fluid, obtained from fistulated sheep (3-4 years of age and 40±5 kg BW), and experimental diets samples, 200 ± 0.2 mg DM, were incubated in 100 mL glass bottles. To each bottle, one of the following treatments was applied: 1) control (no Pb and adsorbent), 2) 15 mg/kg DM Pb as Pb acetate and no adsorbent, 3) 15 mg/kg DM Pb as Pb acetate and 3% activated carbon, 4) 15 mg/kg DM Pb as Pb acetate and 3% nanoclay and 5) 15 mg/kg DM Pb as Pb acetate and 3% bentonite. Supplementation of ruminal medium with 15 ppm Pb significantly (P<0.01) decreased total and rate of gas production at all incubation times. Rate and total gas production were significantly (P<0.05) higher for nanoclay compared to control and the other adsorbents treatments. Lead inclusion decreased organic matter digestibility (OMD), net and metabolizable energy contents and short chain fatty acids production (P<0.01). Among the adsorbents, nanoclay showed to be more effective on ruminanl fermentation parameters and improved rate and total gas production. Manuscript profile

This study investigated the effect of Rumex Sc (commercial product which includes of Saccharomyces cervisiae, saponin and essential oils) on rumen fermentation, blood glucose, urea, milk yield and milk composition. Animals were offered a basal diet containing alfalfa hay (15.5%), corn silage (24%), beet pulp (7%) and concentrate (53.5%). Additionally, Rumex Sc was included in the experimental diet at a rate of 5 g/day/cow. Sampling of milk, ruminal liquid and blood was conducted for determination of milk composition, fermentation parameters and blood metabolites. Milk yield was significantly increased for the experimental group when compared to the control group (P<0.05), but milk composition was not affected by Rumex Sc. The number of protozoa, ammonia nitrogen concentration and pH in the rumen were decreased in the experimental group (P<0.05). Concentrations of volatile fatty acids in the rumen were affected to some extent by inclusion of Rumex Sc in the diet. Molar proportion of acetate was decreased and propionate was increased with a corresponding decrease in acetate: propionate ratio. In this study, blood glucose was significantly increased and urea decreased with the addition of Rumex Sc (P<0.05). It was concluded that using Rumex Sc can improve the milk yield performance of dairy cows, however further studies are needed. Manuscript profile

A comparative study of artificial neural network (ANN) and multiple regression is made to predict the fat tail weight of Balouchi sheep from birth, weaning and finishing weights. A multilayer feed forward network with back propagation of error learning mechanism was used to predict the sheep body weight. The data (69 records) were randomly divided into two subsets. The first subset is the training set comprising of 75 percent data (52 records) to build the neural network model and test data set comprising of 25 percent (17 records), which is not used during the training and is used to evaluate performance of different models. The mean relative error was significantly (P<0.01) lower for ANN than the MLR model. The coefficient of determination (R2) values computed for the body measurements were generally higher (0.93) using ANN model than themultiple linear regression (MLR) model (0.81). The ANN model improved the mean squared error (MSE) of the MLR model by 59% and R2 by 15% that the ANN represents a valuable tool for predicting of lamb fat tail weight from birth, weaning and finishing weights. Manuscript profile

A study was conducted to evaluate effects of age at weaning on various growth characteristics and stress measures of Zandi lambs. The lambs were weaned at 45 and 90 days of age. The body weights and average daily gain (ADG) were monitored during the experimental period and 5 months of age. Cortisol, glucose, blood urea nitrogen (BUN) and lamb behavior (agitation, vocalization) were recorded before and after weaning. After separation, lambs weaned at 45 d of age had greater agitation scores and bleats. Furthermore, serum cortisol, glucose and BUN concentration were higher for lambs at a weaning age of 45 d. The ADG and weaning and 5-months weights were similar. The results of the present study indicated that there is no significant difference in the growth traits of Zandi lambs, weaned at 45 or 90 days of age, and suggested that lamb could be weaned at 45 days of age. Manuscript profile