Directory UMM :Data Elmu:jurnal:A:Animal Feed Science and Technology:Vol86.Issue3-4.Aug2000:
Animal Feed Science and Technology
86 (2000) 251±260
Short communication
Growth performance of faunated and
defaunated Malpura weaner lambs
A. Santra*, S.A. Karim
Division of Animal Nutrition, Central Sheep and Wool Research Institute,
Avikanagar Ð 304 501, Rajasthan, India
Received 1 September 1999; received in revised form 10 April 2000; accepted 7 June 2000
Abstract
An experiment was conducted to study the effect of presence or absence of rumen ciliate
protozoa on nutrient intake, its utilization, rate of body weight gain and feed conversion ef®ciency
of lambs in post-weaning phase of growth. Forty ®ve weaned Malpura lambs, divided into three
equal groups (G1, G2 and G3) were either defaunated by periodic dosing of sodium lauryl sulfate at
the rate of 8 g/100 kg body weight (G1) or defaunated and refaunated (G2) or maintained faunated
(G3). The lambs were fed for 90 days on 50:50 pala (Zizyphus nummularia) leaf and concentrate
based complete feed. With care and segregation the defaunated lambs were maintained free of
rumen protozoa for 47 days after which Entodinomorphid appeared while Holotrichs were not
detected. The total and differential protozoa count was similar in refaunated and faunated lambs and
the residual toxic effect of sodium lauryl sulfate if any was not detected. Even with similar dry
matter intake in the three groups, body weight gain and feed conversion ef®ciency were higher in
defaunated lambs. The digestibilities of cell and cell wall contents were generally poor in
defaunated lambs while intake of digestible protein and energy were similar in the three groups.
The lambs in the three groups were in positive nitrogen balance while percent N retention was
higher in defaunated than in refaunated and faunated lambs.
It was concluded from the study that with similar dry matter intake and plane of nutrition, the
growth performance and feed conversion ef®ciency were better in defaunated than refaunated and
faunated lambs. In spite of reduced digestibility of neutral detergent ®bre, acid detergent ®bre and
cellulose, the metabolise energy availability for body synthetic activity was probably higher in
defaunated lambs as evident from the observed production traits. # 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All
rights reserved.
Keywords: Lambs; Defaunation; Nutrient utilization; Plane of nutrition; Growth
*
Corresponding author. Tel.: 91-1437-28143; fax: 91-1437-28163.
E-mail address: santra@cswri.raj.nic.in (A. Santra).
0377-8401/00/$ ± see front matter # 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
PII: S 0 3 7 7 - 8 4 0 1 ( 0 0 ) 0 0 1 6 1 - 9
252
A. Santra, S.A. Karim / Animal Feed Science and Technology 86 (2000) 251±260
1. Introduction
Rumen protozoa play important role in utilization of lignocellulosic material by
fermentative digestion in ruminants (Bird et al., 1994; Chaudhary et al., 1995; Santra and
Jakhmola, 1998). It is now well established by a number of in vivo experiments that
elimination of ciliate protozoa from rumen microbial ecosystem (defaunation) increases
the intestinal protein ¯ow (Lindsay and Hogan, 1972; Ushida et al., 1984, 1986; Rowe
et al., 1985; Meyer et al., 1986; Kayouli et al., 1986) thus improving body weight gain in
young ruminants and increasing wool growth in sheep under certain feeding condition
(Bird et al., 1979; Ivan et al., 1992; Bird et al., 1994). During last decade many attempts
were made in developed countries to generate information regarding role of protozoa on
the rumen metabolism and performance of ruminant (Jouany et al., 1988; Demeyer,
1992). However, such studies were almost lacking in tropical environment (Developing
countries). Further in developing countries livestock are primarily maintained on low
grade roughage (Crop residues) and it is well established that low grade roughage feeding
results in more methane production thus leading to wastage of digestible energy in rumen
fermentation. In the rumen, protozoa produce hydrogen which is used by the ruminal
bacteria to reduce carbon dioxide to methane (Jouany et al., 1988). Hence, defaunation
reduces methane production to the tune of 20±30% and increases about 12%
metabolizable energy availability to the animals (Whitelaw et al., 1984; Kreuzer et al.,
1986; Santra et al., 1994a). Land utilization pattern, agricultural production system and
availability of feed resources for livestock in developing countries particularly in India
are unlikely to change in near future. Hence, it is felt that 10±12% increment in digestible
energy availability to the ruminants simply by defaunation will have sizable contribution
in improving their production. The reported experiment was therefore conducted to study
the effect of presence or absence of rumen ciliate protozoa on nutrient intake, its
utilization, growth and feed conversion ef®ciency of lambs in post-weaning phase of
growth.
2. Material and methods
2.1. Animals and defaunation protocol
Forty ®ve Malpura weaner (90 days) lambs with average body weight of 10.6 kg were
randomly divided into three equal groups (G1, G2 and G3) of 15 lambs each. All the lambs
of G1 and G2 were defaunated by fasting them for 24 h followed by administration of 8 g
sodium lauryl sulfate/100 kg body weight for 2 consecutive days as 10% solution directly
into rumen through a stomach tube. On the ®rst day of defaunation the lambs received
only 200 g air dried and conserved Pala (Zizyphus numularia) leaves in the evening. After
6 days of defaunation (sodium lauryl sulfate treatment), all the lambs of G2 were
refaunated by inoculating 100 ml/lamb rumen content drawn from normal faunated and
®stulated rams maintained on similar diet. The lambs in G1 were maintained defaunated
throughout the study by periodic dosing of sodium lauryl sulfate when required. The
status of defaunation in G1 animals was checked in 7 days intervals by collecting rumen
A. Santra, S.A. Karim / Animal Feed Science and Technology 86 (2000) 251±260
253
¯uid from these intact animals using a stomach tube. The collected rumen ¯uid was
strained through one layer of muslin cloth.
2.2. Experimental feeding and metabolism trial
All the animals in the three groups were individually fed for 90 days on a composite
feed containing 50:50 Pala (Zizyphus nummularia) leaf and concentrate ingredients
(ground pala 50, crushed barley grain 37, groundnut cake 20, mineral mixture 2 and
common salt 1% along with Vitablend1 20 g/100 kg feed) in mash form. The chemical
composition of the experimental feed and the Pala leaf is presented in Table 1. Feed was
offered once daily at 0900 h after discarding previous day's residue and record of daily
feed intake was maintained throughout the experimental period. All the lambs were
weighed in weekly intervals for 2 consecutive days during the entire course of the study.
After 80 days of the experimental feeding a metabolism trial of 7 days duration was
conducted on nine lambs from each group in metabolic cages with provision for
quantitative collection of faeces and urine. Composited samples of feed offered, residue,
faeces and urine from the metabolic trial were subjected to preliminary processing and
preserved for subsequent chemical analysis. Blood samples were also collected from all
the animals in the morning hours before feed offer by jugular vein puncture at 0, 45 and
90 days of the experimental feeding.
2.3. Chemical analysis
The feed offered, residue left and faeces and urine voided were analyzed for dry matter
(DM) by drying at 1008C for 24 h, organic matter (OM) by ashing at 5508C for 4 h and
crude protein (CP) by Kjeldahl technique (AOAC, 1980). Neutral detergent ®ber (NDF),
acid detergent ®ber (ADF) and acid detergent lignin (ADL) were estimated by the method
of Van Soest et al. (1991). Cellulose was calculated by the difference of ADFÿADL.
Blood glucose was estimated in whole blood (Cooper and Mc Daniel, 1970) and urea
nitrogen (Rahamatullah and Boyde, 1980), total protein and albumin (Annino, 1976) in
separated serum. The counting of rumen protozoa was carried out as per the method
described by Kamra et al. (1991).
Table 1
Chemical composition (on % DM) of the diet
Particulars
Composite ration
Pala (Zizyphus numularia) leaves
Organic matter
Crude protein
Neutral detergent ®bre
Acid detergent ®bre
Cellulose
Lignin
Gross energy (kcal/g DM)
87.7
14.2
50.3
30.2
23.9
6.1
4.4
83.8
11.8
58.7
33.5
18.7
6.9
4.1
254
A. Santra, S.A. Karim / Animal Feed Science and Technology 86 (2000) 251±260
Fig. 1. Body weight changes of lambs during the experimental period.
2.4. Statistical analysis
The data on feed intake, nutrient utilization and feed conversion ef®ciency were
subjected to test of signi®cance between the treatments using least squares analysis of
variance (Snedecor and Cochran, 1989) and signi®cant treatment means were compared
by Duncan's multiple range test (Duncan, 1955). Weekly body weight changes of
individual lamb was traced by ®tting polynomial curves and the generated constants were
subjected to analysis of variance to assess treatment differences. The pooled constants of
the three groups are presented in Fig. 1 to show their growth pro®le.
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Nutrient intake and growth performance
The lambs were periodically screened for presence of rumen protozoa by drawing
rumen liquor from all the defaunated lambs using stomach tube. It was evident from the
results that the defaunating agent sodium lauryl sulfate used in the study was fully
effective in removing protozoa from the rumen and successfully defaunated the lambs.
With little extra care in management and segregation such defaunated lambs could be
maintained free of rumen ciliate protozoa till 47 days. After 47 days of defaunation and
experimental feeding, Entodinomorphid protozoa appeared in defaunated animals
whereas holotrichs were not detected. The results indicate that as compared to holotrichs,
the Entodinomorphid protozoa were more resistant to defaunating agent used in the study.
255
A. Santra, S.A. Karim / Animal Feed Science and Technology 86 (2000) 251±260
Table 2
Changes in body weight and nutrient intake in experimental lambs
Particulars
Defaunated
(Group I)
Refaunated
(Group II)
Faunated
(Group III)
SEMa
Level of
significance
Initial body weight (kg)
Final body weight (kg)
Total body weight gain (kg)
Average daily gain (g)
Total dry-matter intake (kg)
Dry-matter intake (g/day)
Total DCP intake (kg)
DCP intake (g/day)
Total DE intake (Mcal)
DE intake (Mcal/day)
Per cent feed conversion ef®ciency
10.6
23.0 bb
12.4 b
138 b
68.5
761
6.3
70
202
2.2
18.1 b
10.7
20.9 a
10.2 a
113 a
67.9
754
6.4
71
207
2.3
15.1 a
10.5
20.7 a
10.2 a
113 a
68.2
758
6.4
71
209
2.3
15.1 a
0.32
0.35
0.26
2.8
1.95
27.6
0.19
4.1
5.8
0.78
0.42
NSc
p
86 (2000) 251±260
Short communication
Growth performance of faunated and
defaunated Malpura weaner lambs
A. Santra*, S.A. Karim
Division of Animal Nutrition, Central Sheep and Wool Research Institute,
Avikanagar Ð 304 501, Rajasthan, India
Received 1 September 1999; received in revised form 10 April 2000; accepted 7 June 2000
Abstract
An experiment was conducted to study the effect of presence or absence of rumen ciliate
protozoa on nutrient intake, its utilization, rate of body weight gain and feed conversion ef®ciency
of lambs in post-weaning phase of growth. Forty ®ve weaned Malpura lambs, divided into three
equal groups (G1, G2 and G3) were either defaunated by periodic dosing of sodium lauryl sulfate at
the rate of 8 g/100 kg body weight (G1) or defaunated and refaunated (G2) or maintained faunated
(G3). The lambs were fed for 90 days on 50:50 pala (Zizyphus nummularia) leaf and concentrate
based complete feed. With care and segregation the defaunated lambs were maintained free of
rumen protozoa for 47 days after which Entodinomorphid appeared while Holotrichs were not
detected. The total and differential protozoa count was similar in refaunated and faunated lambs and
the residual toxic effect of sodium lauryl sulfate if any was not detected. Even with similar dry
matter intake in the three groups, body weight gain and feed conversion ef®ciency were higher in
defaunated lambs. The digestibilities of cell and cell wall contents were generally poor in
defaunated lambs while intake of digestible protein and energy were similar in the three groups.
The lambs in the three groups were in positive nitrogen balance while percent N retention was
higher in defaunated than in refaunated and faunated lambs.
It was concluded from the study that with similar dry matter intake and plane of nutrition, the
growth performance and feed conversion ef®ciency were better in defaunated than refaunated and
faunated lambs. In spite of reduced digestibility of neutral detergent ®bre, acid detergent ®bre and
cellulose, the metabolise energy availability for body synthetic activity was probably higher in
defaunated lambs as evident from the observed production traits. # 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All
rights reserved.
Keywords: Lambs; Defaunation; Nutrient utilization; Plane of nutrition; Growth
*
Corresponding author. Tel.: 91-1437-28143; fax: 91-1437-28163.
E-mail address: santra@cswri.raj.nic.in (A. Santra).
0377-8401/00/$ ± see front matter # 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
PII: S 0 3 7 7 - 8 4 0 1 ( 0 0 ) 0 0 1 6 1 - 9
252
A. Santra, S.A. Karim / Animal Feed Science and Technology 86 (2000) 251±260
1. Introduction
Rumen protozoa play important role in utilization of lignocellulosic material by
fermentative digestion in ruminants (Bird et al., 1994; Chaudhary et al., 1995; Santra and
Jakhmola, 1998). It is now well established by a number of in vivo experiments that
elimination of ciliate protozoa from rumen microbial ecosystem (defaunation) increases
the intestinal protein ¯ow (Lindsay and Hogan, 1972; Ushida et al., 1984, 1986; Rowe
et al., 1985; Meyer et al., 1986; Kayouli et al., 1986) thus improving body weight gain in
young ruminants and increasing wool growth in sheep under certain feeding condition
(Bird et al., 1979; Ivan et al., 1992; Bird et al., 1994). During last decade many attempts
were made in developed countries to generate information regarding role of protozoa on
the rumen metabolism and performance of ruminant (Jouany et al., 1988; Demeyer,
1992). However, such studies were almost lacking in tropical environment (Developing
countries). Further in developing countries livestock are primarily maintained on low
grade roughage (Crop residues) and it is well established that low grade roughage feeding
results in more methane production thus leading to wastage of digestible energy in rumen
fermentation. In the rumen, protozoa produce hydrogen which is used by the ruminal
bacteria to reduce carbon dioxide to methane (Jouany et al., 1988). Hence, defaunation
reduces methane production to the tune of 20±30% and increases about 12%
metabolizable energy availability to the animals (Whitelaw et al., 1984; Kreuzer et al.,
1986; Santra et al., 1994a). Land utilization pattern, agricultural production system and
availability of feed resources for livestock in developing countries particularly in India
are unlikely to change in near future. Hence, it is felt that 10±12% increment in digestible
energy availability to the ruminants simply by defaunation will have sizable contribution
in improving their production. The reported experiment was therefore conducted to study
the effect of presence or absence of rumen ciliate protozoa on nutrient intake, its
utilization, growth and feed conversion ef®ciency of lambs in post-weaning phase of
growth.
2. Material and methods
2.1. Animals and defaunation protocol
Forty ®ve Malpura weaner (90 days) lambs with average body weight of 10.6 kg were
randomly divided into three equal groups (G1, G2 and G3) of 15 lambs each. All the lambs
of G1 and G2 were defaunated by fasting them for 24 h followed by administration of 8 g
sodium lauryl sulfate/100 kg body weight for 2 consecutive days as 10% solution directly
into rumen through a stomach tube. On the ®rst day of defaunation the lambs received
only 200 g air dried and conserved Pala (Zizyphus numularia) leaves in the evening. After
6 days of defaunation (sodium lauryl sulfate treatment), all the lambs of G2 were
refaunated by inoculating 100 ml/lamb rumen content drawn from normal faunated and
®stulated rams maintained on similar diet. The lambs in G1 were maintained defaunated
throughout the study by periodic dosing of sodium lauryl sulfate when required. The
status of defaunation in G1 animals was checked in 7 days intervals by collecting rumen
A. Santra, S.A. Karim / Animal Feed Science and Technology 86 (2000) 251±260
253
¯uid from these intact animals using a stomach tube. The collected rumen ¯uid was
strained through one layer of muslin cloth.
2.2. Experimental feeding and metabolism trial
All the animals in the three groups were individually fed for 90 days on a composite
feed containing 50:50 Pala (Zizyphus nummularia) leaf and concentrate ingredients
(ground pala 50, crushed barley grain 37, groundnut cake 20, mineral mixture 2 and
common salt 1% along with Vitablend1 20 g/100 kg feed) in mash form. The chemical
composition of the experimental feed and the Pala leaf is presented in Table 1. Feed was
offered once daily at 0900 h after discarding previous day's residue and record of daily
feed intake was maintained throughout the experimental period. All the lambs were
weighed in weekly intervals for 2 consecutive days during the entire course of the study.
After 80 days of the experimental feeding a metabolism trial of 7 days duration was
conducted on nine lambs from each group in metabolic cages with provision for
quantitative collection of faeces and urine. Composited samples of feed offered, residue,
faeces and urine from the metabolic trial were subjected to preliminary processing and
preserved for subsequent chemical analysis. Blood samples were also collected from all
the animals in the morning hours before feed offer by jugular vein puncture at 0, 45 and
90 days of the experimental feeding.
2.3. Chemical analysis
The feed offered, residue left and faeces and urine voided were analyzed for dry matter
(DM) by drying at 1008C for 24 h, organic matter (OM) by ashing at 5508C for 4 h and
crude protein (CP) by Kjeldahl technique (AOAC, 1980). Neutral detergent ®ber (NDF),
acid detergent ®ber (ADF) and acid detergent lignin (ADL) were estimated by the method
of Van Soest et al. (1991). Cellulose was calculated by the difference of ADFÿADL.
Blood glucose was estimated in whole blood (Cooper and Mc Daniel, 1970) and urea
nitrogen (Rahamatullah and Boyde, 1980), total protein and albumin (Annino, 1976) in
separated serum. The counting of rumen protozoa was carried out as per the method
described by Kamra et al. (1991).
Table 1
Chemical composition (on % DM) of the diet
Particulars
Composite ration
Pala (Zizyphus numularia) leaves
Organic matter
Crude protein
Neutral detergent ®bre
Acid detergent ®bre
Cellulose
Lignin
Gross energy (kcal/g DM)
87.7
14.2
50.3
30.2
23.9
6.1
4.4
83.8
11.8
58.7
33.5
18.7
6.9
4.1
254
A. Santra, S.A. Karim / Animal Feed Science and Technology 86 (2000) 251±260
Fig. 1. Body weight changes of lambs during the experimental period.
2.4. Statistical analysis
The data on feed intake, nutrient utilization and feed conversion ef®ciency were
subjected to test of signi®cance between the treatments using least squares analysis of
variance (Snedecor and Cochran, 1989) and signi®cant treatment means were compared
by Duncan's multiple range test (Duncan, 1955). Weekly body weight changes of
individual lamb was traced by ®tting polynomial curves and the generated constants were
subjected to analysis of variance to assess treatment differences. The pooled constants of
the three groups are presented in Fig. 1 to show their growth pro®le.
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Nutrient intake and growth performance
The lambs were periodically screened for presence of rumen protozoa by drawing
rumen liquor from all the defaunated lambs using stomach tube. It was evident from the
results that the defaunating agent sodium lauryl sulfate used in the study was fully
effective in removing protozoa from the rumen and successfully defaunated the lambs.
With little extra care in management and segregation such defaunated lambs could be
maintained free of rumen ciliate protozoa till 47 days. After 47 days of defaunation and
experimental feeding, Entodinomorphid protozoa appeared in defaunated animals
whereas holotrichs were not detected. The results indicate that as compared to holotrichs,
the Entodinomorphid protozoa were more resistant to defaunating agent used in the study.
255
A. Santra, S.A. Karim / Animal Feed Science and Technology 86 (2000) 251±260
Table 2
Changes in body weight and nutrient intake in experimental lambs
Particulars
Defaunated
(Group I)
Refaunated
(Group II)
Faunated
(Group III)
SEMa
Level of
significance
Initial body weight (kg)
Final body weight (kg)
Total body weight gain (kg)
Average daily gain (g)
Total dry-matter intake (kg)
Dry-matter intake (g/day)
Total DCP intake (kg)
DCP intake (g/day)
Total DE intake (Mcal)
DE intake (Mcal/day)
Per cent feed conversion ef®ciency
10.6
23.0 bb
12.4 b
138 b
68.5
761
6.3
70
202
2.2
18.1 b
10.7
20.9 a
10.2 a
113 a
67.9
754
6.4
71
207
2.3
15.1 a
10.5
20.7 a
10.2 a
113 a
68.2
758
6.4
71
209
2.3
15.1 a
0.32
0.35
0.26
2.8
1.95
27.6
0.19
4.1
5.8
0.78
0.42
NSc
p