The Effects of Diet Concentrate and Mineral Buffer Types on Fattening Lambs Performance, Nutrient Digestibility, Blood Metabolites, Rumen Fermentation and Carcass Traits

Subject Areas :

M.   Asadi ¹ (Department of Animal and Poultry Nutrition, Faculty of Animal Science, Gorgan University of Agricultural Science and Natural Resources, Gorgan, Iran)
A.   Toghdory ² (Gorgan University of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources)
T.   Ghoorchi ³ (Department of Animal and Poultry Nutrition, Faculty of Animal Science, Gorgan University of Agricultural Science and Natural Resources, Gorgan, Iran)
S.   Kargar ⁴ (Department of Animal Science, College of Agriculture, Shiraz University, Shiraz, Iran)

Received: 2023-03-28 Accepted : 2023-07-12 Published : 2024-06-01

Keywords: blood metabolite, buffer type, concentrate type, Dalagh lambs, performance, rumen fermentation,

Abstract :

This study was conducted to evaluate the effects of the physical form of concentrate and mineral buffer type on lambs performance, nutrient digestibility, rumen fermentation, blood metabolites and in fattening Dalagh lambs. Twenty-eight lambs with an initial live body weight of 33 ± 2.7 kg and 6 ± 1 months of age were assigned through a completely randomized design with 2 × 2 factorial arrangement to 4 treatments and 7 replicates. Treatments contained: pelleted concentrate with sesquisodium carbonate, pelleted concentrate with sodium bicarbonate, mash concentrate with sesquisodium carbonate and mash concentrate with so-dium bicarbonate. The study period was 84 days. Lambs were weighed fortnightly. In last week of the ex-periment, sampling and collection of feces was done to determine digestibility. Sampling from rumen fluid and blood sampling was carried out on day 80 of experiment. The results showed that in lambs fed pellet concentrate live weight, daily live weight gain, feed conversion, whole carcass, hot carcass and cool carcass were higher (P<0.05) in lambs fed pelleted than those fed mash concentrate. Digestibility of dry matter was higher in pellet concentrate than in mash (P<0.05). In blood parameters, glucose concentration in pellet concentrate was more than mash concentrate treatments (P<0.05). Ruminal pH showed a significant in-crease in the concentrations of mash and sodium bicarbonate buffer in three hours after feeding in the morn-ing (P<0.05). Ammonia-N in rumen had no significant difference was observed. Among the fatty acids, concentration of TVFA, acetate and propionate in treatments of mash concentrate was higher than that of pellet (P<0.05). Similarly, feeding mash concentrate instead of pellet increased rumination activity (P<0.05). According to the results, offering pellet concentrate with either of two buffers showed higher weight gain, digestibility compared to mash concentrate. While lambs fed mash concentrate had higher rumen parameters than those fed pelleted concentrate.

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