Effects of roughage types on production performance, meat quality, and serum biochemical indices of Tan sheep
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Abstract
This experiment aimed to study the effect of adding 10% Caragana korshinskii (CK group), Echinochloa frumentacea (EE group), Glycyrrhiza uralensis (GU group), Lycium barbarum branches (LB group), and Vitis vinifera (grape vines) (GV group) to the diet of Tan sheep, on the production performance, meat quality, and serum biochemical indices. For the experiment, 60 healthy male Tan sheep with similar body condition (body weight 18.85 kg) were selected and randomly divided into six groups with 10 animals each. The groups comprised five experimental groups and 1 control group. The pre-feeding and trial periods were set as 11 and 59 days, respectively. The results revealed that: 1) In terms of production performance, the average daily feed intake of the LB group was the lowest (1.30 kg), significantly lower than that of all other groups (P < 0.05) including the control group; the average daily gain was the highest in the control and EE groups (290.00 and 272.88 g, respectively) and the lowest in the LB group (227.33 g), with significant differences between the groups (P < 0.05). 2) In terms of meat quality, the muscle cholesterol was the lowest at 0.44 mg·g−1 in the CK group, significantly lower than that in the control and other experimental groups (P < 0.05). The muscle inosincacid (IMP) content was the highest in EE group (4.12 mg·g−1), significantly higher than that in the control, CK, and GU groups (P < 0.05), followed by that in the LB group (3.89 mg·g−1), which was significantly higher than that in the CK group (P < 0.05). 3) With regard to serum biochemical indices, EF group exhibited the highest serum triglyceride levels (0.44 mmol·L−1), significantly different from the GU and GV groups (P < 0.05), however, not from the control group (P > 0.05). In summary, different roughages have certain effects on the production performance, meat quality, and blood glucose and lipid metabolism of Tan sheep. Furthermore, although the addition of C. korshinskii, E. frumentacea, G. uralensis, L. barbarum branches, and grape vines can alleviate the problems caused by insufficient forage sources, the lack of certain roughage in the production performance of beach sheep should also be considered in production applications.
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