TY - JOUR
T1 - Astragalus membranaceus root supplementation improves average daily gain, rumen fermentation, serum immunity and antioxidant indices of Tibetan sheep
AU - Wang, X. J.
AU - Ding, L. M.
AU - Wei, H. Y.
AU - Jiang, C. X.
AU - Yan, Q.
AU - Hu, C. S.
AU - Jia, G. X.
AU - Zhou, Y. Q.
AU - Henkin, Z.
AU - Degen, A. A.
N1 - Funding Information:
This research was supported by Platform of Adaptive Management on Alpine Grassland-livestock System ( 2020-ZJ-T07 ), Qinghai Provincial Science and Technology Major Project ( 2018-NK-A2 ), Natural Science Foundation of Qinghai Province ( 2017-ZJ-915Q ), Qinghai Key Research and Development Project ( 2017-NK-114 ), Key Lab Project of Qinghai Province ( 2013-Z-Y03 ) and China Agriculture Research System: National Modern Agriculture (Beef and Yak) Industrial Technology System Project ( CARS-37 ). Preliminary results have been published in a non-peer review preprint form ( Wang et al., 2020 . DOI: 10.21203/rs.3.rs-18656/v1 ).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 The Authors
PY - 2021/1/1
Y1 - 2021/1/1
N2 - The use of antibiotics as supplements in animal feed is restricted due to possible health hazards associated with them. Consequently, there is increasing interest in exploiting natural products to improve health and production of livestock with no detrimental side effects. In this study, we examined the effect of Astragalus membranaceus root (AMT) supplementation on DM intake, growth performance, rumen fermentation and immunity of Tibetan sheep. Twenty-four male Tibetan sheep (31 ± 1.4 kg; 9 months old) were assigned randomly to one of four dietary treatments with different levels of AMT: 0, 20, 50 and 80 g/kg DM (A0, A2, A5 and A8, respectively) in addition to their basal diets. A0 acted as a control group, and measurements were recorded over a 56-d feeding period. Sheep fed with AMT had a higher average daily gain and a lower feed:gain ratio than controls (P < 0.001). Rumen concentrations of NH3-N (P < 0.001), total volatile fatty acids (P = 0.028), acetate (P = 0.017) and propionate (P = 0.031) in A5 and A8 were higher than those in A0. The addition of AMT in the feed significantly increased serum antioxidant and immunity factors of the sheep and increased the concentrations of serum interleukin, immunoglobulin and tumour necrosis factor-α (P = 0.010). We concluded that AMT can be used as a feed additive to improve growth performance and rumen fermentation and enhance the immunity of Tibetan sheep. Some responses exhibited a dose-dependent response, whereas other did not exhibit a pattern, with an increase in AMT. The addition of 50 and 80 g/kg AMT of total DM intake showed the most promising results.
AB - The use of antibiotics as supplements in animal feed is restricted due to possible health hazards associated with them. Consequently, there is increasing interest in exploiting natural products to improve health and production of livestock with no detrimental side effects. In this study, we examined the effect of Astragalus membranaceus root (AMT) supplementation on DM intake, growth performance, rumen fermentation and immunity of Tibetan sheep. Twenty-four male Tibetan sheep (31 ± 1.4 kg; 9 months old) were assigned randomly to one of four dietary treatments with different levels of AMT: 0, 20, 50 and 80 g/kg DM (A0, A2, A5 and A8, respectively) in addition to their basal diets. A0 acted as a control group, and measurements were recorded over a 56-d feeding period. Sheep fed with AMT had a higher average daily gain and a lower feed:gain ratio than controls (P < 0.001). Rumen concentrations of NH3-N (P < 0.001), total volatile fatty acids (P = 0.028), acetate (P = 0.017) and propionate (P = 0.031) in A5 and A8 were higher than those in A0. The addition of AMT in the feed significantly increased serum antioxidant and immunity factors of the sheep and increased the concentrations of serum interleukin, immunoglobulin and tumour necrosis factor-α (P = 0.010). We concluded that AMT can be used as a feed additive to improve growth performance and rumen fermentation and enhance the immunity of Tibetan sheep. Some responses exhibited a dose-dependent response, whereas other did not exhibit a pattern, with an increase in AMT. The addition of 50 and 80 g/kg AMT of total DM intake showed the most promising results.
KW - Botanical feed additives
KW - Chinese traditional herb
KW - Healthy feeding
KW - Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau
KW - Secondary compounds
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85100549720&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.animal.2020.100061
DO - 10.1016/j.animal.2020.100061
M3 - Article
C2 - 33516026
AN - SCOPUS:85100549720
SN - 1751-7311
VL - 15
JO - Animal
JF - Animal
IS - 1
M1 - 100061
ER -