JOURNAL OF RUMINANT RESEARCH
Year:2014 | Volume:2 | Issue:1|Papers Count:12

The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of treatment soybean meal (SBM) with different levels of tannin containing crude extract of pistachios hulls (CEP) on performance and carcass quality of Holstein male calves. Twenty-eight Holstein young bulls with average initial weigh (256±63kg) and average age (7±0.5 month) were used in a completely randomized design with four treatments and seven replicates for 94 days. Treatments included: 1) control (SBM with water), 2) SBM with 5% CEP, 3) SBM with 10% CEP and 4) SBM treated with 15% (kg CEP/100kg DM SBM). Calves were slaughtered at the end of the study and carcass data collected. According to results Tannin treatments did not affect (P>0.05) on final BW and dry matter intake. There was significant difference among treatment 4 and control in average daily gain (P<0.01) and feed efficiency (P<0.05) traits (feed: gain). There was no effect (P>0.05) of tannin supplementation on the carcass characteristics and chemical composition of meat and liver except in meet CP and DM. Results of this experiment indicated that, tannin extracted from the pistachios hulls improved performance of Holstein male calves, but did not effect on Carcass quality.

The effect of different levels of sugar beet pulp (SBP) as a silage additive on chemical composition, fermentational properties, in situ degradability and in vitro gas production of citrus pulp silage (CPS) was investigated. In a completely randomized design the whole fresh citrus pulp was manually chopped and used as untreated or treated with 6, 12, or 18g SBP/kg fresh citrus pulp for ensiling. The results showed that increasing SBP significantly increased DM% and crude protein (CP %) of silages (P<0.05) but, NDF%, ADF%, ether extract (EE %) and ash% were not affected by treatments (P>0.05). Results showed that with increasing SBP, ammonia nitrogen and pH significantly increased among treatments (P<0.05). Data of Flieg point displayed that all treatments had good quality. Data of in situ degradability indicated that, soluble degradable fraction (a) was significantly higher in first and second treatment and non-soluble degradation fraction (b) was significantly higher in treatments with 12 and 18 g SBP (P<0.05). The fractional degradation rate (c) and effective degradability (ED) of silages were significantly higher in treatments with SBP (P<0.05). Potential degradability (a+b) of silages with increasing SBP of silages was not affected by different treatments (P<0.05). Potential gas production (b), fractional rate of gas production (c), metabolisable energy (ME) and organic matter digestibility (OMD) of silages significantly increased with increasing SBP (P<0.05). The net energy (NEl) and short chain fatty acids (SCFA) content of silages were not significantly different among treatments (P<0.05). This data suggest that the addition of SBP to CPS can improve the nutritional value of citrus pulp silage.

This study aimed to evaluating the effects of canola oil and oregano oil on performance, carcass components, blood parameters, and chemical compositions of Dalagh fattening lambs. 16 Dalagh male lambs with an average weight of 25±2 kg in a completely randomized design allocated to four treatments and four replications over 80 days. Experimental treatments included: 1- control diet based without canola oil and oregano essential oil, 2- Control diet supplemented with 2% canola oil, 3- Control diet supplemented with 2% canola oil and 0.2% oregano essential oil and 4- diet supplemented with 0.2% oregano essential oil. Sheep fed by diets supplemented with canola oil and oregano oil had highest in full carcass, fresh carcass and tight weight (P<0.05). In addition, sheep fattened by oregano essence treatment and control treatment had lowest and highest in abdominal fat and half rump weight, respectively (P<0.05). The amounts of plasma glucose, total cholesterol, triglyceride, HDL and LDL were significantly affected by the treatments (P<0.05). Also, albumin, total protein and urea nitrogen of serum were not significantly affected by a treatments (P>0.05).The results showed that addition of oregano essential oil plus to canola oil proved performance, and also adding 0.2% oregano essential oil in comparison to other treatments led to positive effects on blood parameters.

The experiment was carried out in two steps for evaluate the feeding potential of guar meal on fattened Zel lambs and its comparison with other common oily meals (soybean, sunflower, cottonseed and canola). At the first step, the chemical composition of meals was evaluated. The results showed that there are significant differences between meals composition except dry matter; besides, guar meal had highest amount of protein by 51.02%. In the second step feedlot performance of Zel lambs in a 90-days feedlot period was measured. There was no significance difference in terms of daily weight gain; however, it was numerically highest in guar meal consumed lambs (P<0.05). Any significant difference was observed between feed consumption of guar and soybean (P<0.05). there was no difference in Dry matter intake of lambs guar meal and soybean, In this study, food conversion ratio for lamb that consumer guar meal was better than any other group. Regarding to considerable similarity between guar and soybean meals- as a customary protein complementary of Iran- and results of this study, guar meal can be a suitable alternative for protein part of fattened lambs ration.

This study was conducted to investigate the effect of rumen defaunation on performance, blood parameters, and nutrient digestability in growing lambs using different rations. Twenty-four native lambs were randomly divided into two groups with equal number of lambs. One group was defaunated usine Dioctyl Sodium Sulphosuccinate (DSS) and another group were left intact (control). After 14 days adadptation, each group was divided into three subgroups; first subgroup was fed with a high protein, second subgroup was fed with a fibrouse ration, and third subgroup was fed with a fat supplemented ration. All lambs were kept in individual metabolic cages and were fed in 2×3 factorial for 56 days. The weights of lambs were recorded at the beginning and repetead by two weeks till end of the fattening period. In the last four days of the fattening period, total collection of urine and feces was conducted to determine nutrient digestibility and urine parameters. Blood samples were taken 3-4 h after feeding at the end of fattening period. Results showed that daily weight gain, feed intake and feed conversion rate in all treatments were not significantly different (P>0.05). However, the interaction of defaunation procedure and rations for daily gain was significant (P<0.05). Lambs with defauneted rumen showed significant lower cholestrole and blood urea nitrogen concentration compared to the intact group (P<0.05). Ether extract and crude protein digestibility showed significant difference between two groups (P<0.05). High protein ration also showed superiority among all rations for nutrient digestibility (P<0.05). Based on the present data it can be concluded that the effectivness of rumen defaunation is related to ration composition, because fermentation pattern in defauneted lambs will be varied in relation to nutrient availibilty within the rumen.

In this experiment the effect of adding different kinds of non-fiber carbohydrates (sucrose, starch, or equal mixture of them) on the amount of produced gas and fermentation characteristics of some feedstuffs were studied by gas production technique and in vitro experiment. Gas production was recorded at 2, 4, 6, 8, 12, 24, 48, 72 and 96 h of incubation for non-supplemented and supplemented (70 mg/g DM) pure cellulose, alfalfa hay and sugar beet pulp. The feedstuffs that were used in in vitro experiment includes: alfalfa hay, wheat bran and unmolassed sugar beet pulp. Non-supplemented or NFC supplemented (70 mg/g DM) samples for 4, 8, 16, 24, 48, and 96 h at 39°C. The results of gas production study showed that (except for 2 h), supplementation of all kinds of non-fiber carbohydrates increased the amount of produced gas significantly. Sucrose supplementation increased the gas production rate of alfalfa hay significantly (0.069 vs. 0.060). In the case of sugar beet pulp, the adding of starch decreased the gas production rate significantly. Also, when the alfalfa hay or sugar beet pulp were used as a basal forage, the adding of sucrose, starch or sucrose+ starch increased gas production from fermentable fraction significantly. The source of NFC used in the medium containing alfalfa hay caused a significant decrease in DM disappearance. Fractional rate constant of dry matter disappearance of unmolassed sugar beet pulp and wheat bran was significantly decreased by supplemental non-fiber carbohydrate, except when sucrose was added to wheat bran. The indigestible fraction of dry matter of alfalfa hay was significantly increased when it was supplemented with non-fiber carbohydrate.

In order to study the nutritive value of 8 cultivars of barley including four landrace cultivars (Khaton-Sarab, Gara-arpa, Goy-arpa and Ghavanjik) and four modified cultivars (Makui, CB-74-12, Valfajer, and M-82-12)], were cultivated in four experimental plots. After harvesting, samples of barley grains were ground to pass through a 1 mm sieve, and then were used for chemical analysis. An in vitro gas production technique was used to determine the nutritive value and partitioning factor (ratio of substrate truly degraded to gas volume produced at 24 h of incubation). The contents of the syringes were strained and the pH and NH3-N of the medium was determined immediately. Average crude protein, ash, acid detergent fiber (ADF), ether extract (EE) and natural detergent fiber (NDF) concentrations of the barley samples investigated was on average of 104.3, 28.5, 69.7, 34.3 and 254.5 g/kg, respectively; while the difference was significant (P<0.05) among the cultivars. Gara-arpa and Khaton-Sarab showed the highest ash and crude protein, respectively. Organic matter digestibility of landrace and improved cultivars ranged from 76.1 to 82.1 and 79.1 to 82.7 percent respectively. Their partitioning factor ranged from 2.18 to 2.6 and 2.32 to 2.63 respectively. The amount of NH3-N of landrace and improved cultivars were 6.55 to 7 and 6.15 to 7.07 mg/30ml. Among of landrace cultivars, Ghavanjik and Khaton-Sarab showed the highest organic matter digestibility and partitioning factor respectively, among of improved cultivars Valfajer and M-82-12 had the highest organic matter digestibility and partitioning factor respectively. In conclusion, although there were significant differences between native and modified cultivars with regard to organic matter digestibility and metabolisable energy, but some of native cultivars are comparable with the modified ones.

This experiment was conducted to determine effects of garlic powder supplementation on rumen-intestinal digestion of sheep. At first step, the best level of garlic powder for sheep diets was determined by gas production technique (GP). At second step, with feeding of sheep by selected level, the effects of garlic powder on rumen-intestinal digestion of soybean meal, and rumen digestion and degradation of alfalfa were studied. In this step of experiment, animals were fed 35 day with experimental diets included: control and diet contain best level of garlic powder (2% garlic powder/DM). The results showed that GP, microbial biomass efficiency (P<0.05), and microbial biomass production (P>0.05) were most amount in diet contain 2% garlic powder, so it was selected as best diets in the present study. In in vivo study briefly, adding garlic powder had no effect on potential of GP of alfalfa forage and soybean meal (P>0.05), but significantly increased GP rate of them (P<0.05). Garlic powder consumption by sheep, caused to numeric increased (P>0.05) of rumen degradability (b fraction) of alfalfa forage (6.07%) and soybean meal (3.70%), and intestinal digestion of soybean meal (10.55 vs. 15.51%, for control and diet contain 2% garlic, respectively). Totally, using of garlic powder had no deleterious effect on GP, microbial biomass efficiency, rumen degradability of alfalfa forage and soybean meal, and intestinal digestion of soybean meal, and even numerically improved them (P>0.05). Therefore, as garlic powder has antimicrobial characteristics, but maybe had no negative effect on rumen microbes and digestion of fibrous and proteins feedstuffs. As there are many useful effects for garlic powder, like antibiotics and so on, it is recommended for animal nutrition.

The aim of the present study was to evaluate genetic diversity in Iranian Holstein dairy cattle by using collected pedigree information during 1981 to 2011. The percentage of animals with both known parents in the pedigree was 70.2%. Average number of discrete generation equivalents reached 7.5. Average of all ancestral paths traced back in the pedigree was 37.5. The pedigree completeness index (PCI) of the whole pedigree going back, 5 generations, was 51% and PCI for 15 generations back was 27%. The average inbreeding coefficient and coancestry estimated 3.38% and 2.9%, respectively. Total number of founders, effective number of founders, founder genome equivalent and effective number of nonfounders estimated in the reference population were 52625, 475.5, 14.5 and 14.9, respectively. The results revealed that beside the unequal founder contributions, jointly bottleneck and genetic drift were very important causes the loss of genetic diversity in Iranian Holstein cattle. Furthermore, the most important cause of genetic diversity loss was genetic drift accumulated over non-founder generations. The effective numbers of ancestors estimated 25.7. The numbers of ancestors that explain a given 24%, 50% and 75% of gene pool in the reference population were 2, 11 and 82, respectively. These results showed that in recent years the genetic diversity are slightly higher than the other country but trend in loss of genetic diversity was large. Therefore, mating strategies seem to be properly controlling the rate of the loss.

In this study, we used 16752 test- day records from 3068 cows in the first parity during 1997 to 2010. All records collected from Jehad griculture organization in Khorasan Razavi Province. Estimation of genetic parameters was performed by Wombat software with univariate and bivariate procedures. Wilmink’s function was fitted to describe the lactation curve and associated production characteristics. Results showed that heritability for lactation curve parameters ranged from 0.05 (peak time) to 0.20 (total 305-day milk yield). The estimated heritability rates were low, and this shows that lactation curve parameters largely are influenced by environmental factors. Genetic correlations for lactation curve parameters ranged from -0.47 (0.01) (peak Time and increasing slop in lactation curve) to 0.95 (0.06) (peak milk and initial production level). A large positive genetic correlation found between 305-day and peak milk yield. Therefore, direct selection for total lactation yield would be expected to result in lactations with a higher peak production in Iranian Holstein cows. This shows that Wilmink exponential function can be used for estimation of lactation curve parameters in Iranian Holstein cows.

A number of 52 Arabian ewes with 2-5 years old were randomly divided to three groups: 1) insertion of CIDR for 6 days (n=18), 2) insertion of MAP sponge for 6 days (n=15) and 3) control group without treatment (n=19). In hormonal treatment groups, 600 IU eCG was injected intra muscularly at the time of withdrawal of the above devices. Then, one fertile and health Arabian ram introduced to each five ewes in order to standing heat detection and mating. Estrous response rate, estrous onset time, repeat breeding, fertility, lambing rate, gestation length, litter size, lamb weight and blood serum progesterone values in experimental treatments were studied. Estrous response in CIDR and sponge groups were significantly higher than the control group (P<0.05). Estrous response was not differ between hormonal treatments (P>0.05). There were not significant differences for mean time of estrous onset after withdrawal of progesterone devices, repeat breeding rate, fertility rate, lambing rate, pregnancy duration, litter size, lamb weight and blood serum progesterone concentrations at before and 3 days after insertion of these hormonal devices as well as 50 days after mating between short term CIDR and sponge treatments (P>0.05). One day after removing the CIDR and sponge devices, blood serum progesterone level in CIDR treatment was significantly higher than that in sponge group (P<0.05). The highest estrus responses in short term CIDR and sponge treatments were observed in 36-48 and 48-60 hours after removal of these devices, respectively.

This research work was conducted to investigate technical and economic efficiency of dairy farms of Gorgan County. Data were collected using 33 questionaires and both parametric and non-parametric methods were applied simultaneously. The overall descriptive statistics results showed that the farms have most variation in the total area and cattle size and most similarity in manager’s age and daily milk production records. The results of parametric method showed that average technical and economical efficiency were equal to 75 and 72, respectively and it is possible to increase them up to 22 and 24 respectively. Also, the results of non-parametric method showed that average technical and economical efficiency were equal to 76 and 55 respectively and it is possible to increase them up to 24 and 45 respectively.