مجله پژوهش در نشخوار کنندگان
سال پنجم شماره 2 (تابستان 1396)

Body condition score of sheep depends on the amounts of muscle and fat tissues in horizontal and vertical lumbar vertebrae that show the obesity of live animal. This rating also controls body condition of ewe to detect physical changes and can modify farm management toward improving productive and reproductive traits and thus farm efficiency. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of BCS of ewes on lamb body weight and litter size in Chaal sheep.
Body condition scores of 147 ewes with the age of one to six years old and body weight of 45 to 75 kg were used in a sheep farm located in Takestan County, Qazvin, Iran. Body condition scores of ewes were recorded at 10 to 12 days before mating. Ewes were divided based on BCS into five groups with an increment of one unit (1, 2, 3, 4 and 5). Body condition scores were measured by hand and feeling the muscle and fat tissues along the backbone (between the four last lumbar vertebrae of the spine and the last rib). Minitab 14 was used to estimate the effects of body condition scores on litter size and lamb body weights at birth, weaning and fifth months of age. General linear model and Logistic procedures were used for analyzing body weight traits and litter size, respectively.
Effects of sex and litter size were significant on lamb body weights and male and single lambs were heavier than female and twine lambs at birth, weaning and fifth month of age. Ewe weight did not show significant effect on lamb body weight traits. Ewe age had a significant effect on birth weight and non-significant effects on weaning and fifth month body weights. Also, lamb birth weight had a significant effect on latter body weights and heavier lambs at birth showed more weights at weaning and fifth month. Body condition score showed significant effect on litter size and lamb weights at different ages. Lamb of ewes with BCS 3 and higher were heavier at birth, weaning and 5th month. The highest rate of twinning was recorded in ewes with BCS 3.
These results suggested that Chaal ewes with at the least BCS of 3 at mating had better productive performance and flushing could be used to improve productive and reproductive abilities in ewes with less BCS.

Using agricultural and food industry by-products can reduce nutritional cost. Among by-products, pomegranate seed pulp (PSP) can be used in animal nutrition. To improve the using of the oil in pomegranate seed which most of it is long chain fatty acids, L-carnitine can be utilized. It is effective on long chain fatty acid oxidation for increasing milk production efficiency. This study was designed to investigate the effects of PSP containing unsaturated fatty acids with L-carnitine, on the quantity and quality of milk from Mahabadi lactating goats as well as their rumen activity.
Thirty-two Mahabadi lactating goats with days in milk of 45±6, daily milk production of 1.05±0.20 kg, the average age of three years, 39.8±4.1 kg weight with one sucker kid. Goats were assigned to four groups with eight animals per group. The goats were used in a 2 × 2 factorial arrangement with two levels of 0 and 10% PSP and 0 and 300 parts per millions of L-carnitine per kg of dry matter for six weeks. The experimental diets included: diet without PSP and L-carnitine (control group), diet with 10 percent of PSP without L-carnitine (PSP group), and diet without PSP but with 300 parts per million per kg of dry matter L-carnitin (LC group), and diet with 10 percent PSP and 300 parts per million per kg DM L-carnitine (PSP group), respectively. According to feeding goats individually, goat feed intake were recorded daily. Milk production for every goat was measured two times per day using a milking machine. Sampling from the rumen fluid was done on the last day of the final week of the experiment just three hours after morning feeding with using the esophagus tube connected to vacuum pump. Data analysis was performed using SAS 9.1 (2002) software, and MIXED procedures.
The results of this experiment showed that the addition of PSP and L-carnitine to the diet had no effect on final weight, total weight, average daily gain and dry matter intake, and the change in conversion factor was insignificant. Milk production (grams per day) were not different between treatments, but on the basis of 4 percent fat corrected milk, fat percentage, fat content and fat / protein ratio significantly increased by addition of PSP (P0.05). Also, PSP and L-carnitine did not have any significant effects on molar ratio of the all volatile fatty acids and acetate to propionate ratio, but interaction between PSP and L-carnitine administration increased acetate molar ratio and reduced the isovaletaye and butyrate molar ratio (P The results showed that the addition of the PSP and L-carnitine to the diet improved the quality of the goat milk. Although simultaneous use of PSP and L-carnitine showed no significant effect on milk production, also interaction of PSP and L-carnitine on rumen activity led to increase in acetate production. According to the results, it can be concluded that PSP can be utilized in animal nutrition as a cheap by-product to improve production and composition of goat milk and L-carnitin also can be used as an effective supplement on dietary fat and better supply of energy available in nutrition of dairy goat.

Accurate estimation of variance components using pedigree and genomic data is important for prediction of breeding values. Availability of high density single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) arrays and genotyping many individuals resulted in the increase of accuracy of population-based estimates. Genomic selection potentially can explain all genetic variance by markers. The aim of this study was to determine the amount of genomic additive variation for birth weight and weaning weight of Merino sheep by different minor allele frequency (MAF) groups using two statistical approaches i.e. REML and Bayesian.
Material and In this study, data of 2189 Merino sheep, genotyped by 50k Illumina SNP chip were used. After the quality control of genotyping data, 47342 markers remained for subsequent analysis. For birth weight and weaning weight 1331 and 2136 records were available, respectively. To study the association between allele frequency spectrum and captured additive genetic variance, all SNPs were partitioned in five MAF bins with the equal numbers of SNPs (0-0.18, 0.18-0.28, 0.28-0.36, 0.36-0.43 and 0.43-0.499). The analysis was performed using REML and a Bayesian method implemented via Gibbs sampling and RKHS model.
Using all common SNPs in REML approach, estimates of genomic heritability were 0.58±0.07 and 0.46±0.05 for birth weight and weaning weight, respectively. This heritability values in Bayesian analysis and RKHS method for these traits were estimated to be 0.58±0.07 and 0.46 ± 0.05, respectively. The amount of genetic variation explained by five different MAF groups was different in separate and joint analysis. The estimates from separate analysis were higher than joint analysis for two traits and two (REML and Bayesian) methods. In separate analysis, the genomic heritability was similar for all MAF bins by two approaches. In the joint analysis there were large differences between REML and Bayesian estimates in terms of explaining genetic variation across MAF subsets. For birth weight, SNPs with MAF 0.18-0.28 marked the largest amount of genomic heritability using REML method. In this method, heritability of Weaning weight was zero using SNP with MAF 0.43-0.499. All MAF bins contributed to genetic variation in Bayesian method. In separate analysis, sum of genomic variances for five MAF bins was larger than estimated variance by all set of SNPs together, while sum of this variances in joint analysis was same as the value of variance obtained by all SNPs for both traits and both statistical methods.
Variance components obtained by Bayesian method are more realistic, because they have less prediction error variance. Bayesian methods considered common prior distribution for the variance, so results of this method were more reliable than other methods. Although the number of SNPs in different groups was similar, the amount of genetic variance explained by the different MAF groups was different.

Different cereals are used to feed the sheep. The grains have different level and combinations of non-fiber carbohydrates (NFC) that can affect the digestibility and performance of the lamb. This study was conducted to evaluate the effect of dietary level of NFC and type of cereal grain on performance, nutrient digestibility and carcass characteristics of fattening lambs.
In this study, twenty nearly 90 day-old lambs with the average weight of 25±1/1 kg were assigned in a factorial arrangement based on completely randomized design with four treatments and five replicates each, over 80 days. Treatments consisted of 1- ground barley grain with 33 percent NFC, 2- milled barley grain with 40 percent NFC, and 3- ground corn with 40 percent of NFC. Metabolizable energy, crude protein, forage to concentration ratio and cell wall level were same between experimental treatments. In this experiment, feed and fecal sampling was performed on two times during the experimental period. At the end of the finishing period, two lambs from each treatment were slaughtered and carcass weight and hot, hip, shoulder, fat, carcass without tail, thigh and shoulder, weight of liver, kidney, heart, pancreas, abdominal fat and empty rumen and reticulum were recorded.
Digestibility of organic matter, neutral detergent fiber and crude ash decreased with increasing levels of NFC. Use of corn grain increased of digestibility organic matter, acid detergent fiber and crude fat. There were significant differences between treatments for carcass treatments, percent of pestle, carcass without tail, percent of abdominal fat and tail to carcass. The lowest percent of kidney and pancreas was observed in corn grain with 40 percent NFC. Using corn with 33 percent NFC caused the decrease in rumen and reticulum emptiness.
The results showed that lambs performance, carcass weight, thigh percent and carcass without tail and abdominal fat percentage and fat in the carcass weight were affected by grain. The dry matter digestibility was not affected by grain, but organic matter digestibility was higher in lambs that fed diets containing corn. It seems that corn with 40 percent carbohydrate showed better performance among treatments and recommended for breeding programs.

Fattening lambs is an important source of animal protein in Iran. The fattening enterprise is performed by rearing livestock on pasture or at feedlot or both of them. At this time, feedlot system with feeding high concentrate diets is more prevalent than other systems. This study was conducted to evaluate the effects of using different dietary forage to concentrate ratios on growth performance, feed intake, feed efficiency, and carcass characteristics of fattening Chall male lambs in Animal Science Research Institute.
Eighty Chall male lambs breed, averaging four to five months of age and body weight of 33.5±3.9 kg were randomly assigned to four treatments with four replicates of five animals per treatment. Four diets containing alfalfa hay-to-concentrate ratios (DM basis) of 70:30, 50:50, 30:70, 10:90; Metabolizable energy of 2.23, 2.43, 2.58; 2.71 Mcal/kg DM and CP contents of 151, 158, 164, and 170 g/kg were randomly assigned to four groups, respectively. The diets were prepared in pelleted form and lambs were fed three times a day at 8.00, 14.00 and 20.00 for 84 days ad libitum. At the end of the feeding period, all lambs were weighed after 16 h feed deprivation and one lamb from each replicate was slaughtered. After complete bleeding, the bodies were skinned and the internal organs such as head, feet and skin were weighed. The carcasses were eviscerated, and the internal organs or tissues and digestive tract were separated and weighed. The hot carcasses were weighed and chilled at 4ºC for 24 h. The cold carcasses were weighed and sawed into two symmetrical sides along backbone. The right side carcasses were cut into six wholesale cuts (neck, shoulder, leg, rack–loin, brisket– flank, and tail fat) and weighed separately. All cuts except tail fat were dissected into the main tissue components (lean, subcutaneous and inter-muscular fat, and bone) and the weight of each tissue was recorded.
Dry matter intake and feed conversion ratio (P In conclusion the results of this study indicated that the increase of dietary concentrate (up to 700 g/kg) improves growth rate, FCR and dressing percentage without negative effect on carcass lean-to-fat ratio of Chall lambs.

Organophosphate (OP) compounds such as phosalone and diazinon are a diverse group of chemicals used against a wide range of agricultural pests. Ruminant animals are raised in environments that may expose to a wide variety of pesticides. Exposure of animals to these types of pesticides may be intentional, such as the dermal application of various pesticides for control of insect and parasite infestation, or exposure may be accidental, such as the consumption of chemically-contaminated feed. The first concern is the potential deleterious effect of the chemical on the animal health. The second concern, particularly to animal food producers is health of livestock products. So the purpose of this experiment was to study the effect of diazinon and phosalone on the fermentation parameters, protozoa population and a ruminal fibrolytic bacteria species (Butyrivibrio fibrisolvens) in the culture medium using real-time PCR.
Phosalone and diazinon, two organophosphate pesticides at three levels (0, 100 and 500 ppm) and sodium bentonite at two levels (0 and 2% of diet DM) were used with a factorial experiment 2×3×2 in a laboratory media according to completely randomized design. The gas production was measured and the some parameters were also estimated by the cumulative gas production technique. The total protozoa and the ruminal bacterium Butyrivibrio fibrisolvens in the culture medium were determined by the real-time PCR.
The cumulative gas production after 12, 24 and 48 h of incubation, and also the rate (cgas) and potential gas production (bgas) were significantly decreased when phosalone or diazinon were added to the culture medium. Adding phosalone and diazinon to the culture medium were significantly decreased the total estimated parameters such as organic matter degradability, metabolizable energy, net energy for lactation, microbial protein yield and shortchain fatty acids. Adding sodium bentonite (2%) to the culture medium also resulted in a significant decrease in the above-mentioned parameters. The protozoa population was significantly decreased following application of two pesticides to the culture medium, but ruminal bacterium Butyrivibrio fibrisolvens was not affected by the type of pesticide. Application of sodium bentonite in the culture medium also decreased significantly the population of protozoa and ruminal bacterium Butyrivibrio fibrisolvens.
Using both diazinon and phosalone had negative effects on the gas production, estimated parameters and total protozoa. Toxicity of phosalone on the culture medium was more in comparison to diazinon. Sodium bentonite as a toxin-binder could not decrease the negative effects of both phosalone and diazinon in the culture medium and resulted in negative impacts on the gas production, estimated parameters, ruminal bacterium Butyrivibrio fibrisolvens and total protozoa.

Acidosis is a problem for most livestock farms that imposes economic losses every year. Subsequent to the increase in concentrate in diet, the rumen fluid become acidic, digestibility of fiber decreases and changes in the rumen microbial population will be observed. Diets with high levels of concentrates may lead to reduce the rumen buffering capacity by interfering with the mechanisms of digestion and subsequently alter rumen pH. Studies have shown that the use of buffers in animal nutrition, improved rumen environmental conditions via moderated rumen pH, to prevent the pH reduction. Rumenobuffer supplement has been produced for prevention of acidosis and improving the animal performance. Rumenobuffer supplement formed by common buffers and a few herbs. This experiment carried out to compare the effect of Rumenobuffer supplementation, sodium-bicarbonate and mixed herbs on the prevention of acidosis and improving the performance of fattening lambs.
Thirty-six male Kurdy lambs (25±2 kg), five months old, were reared for 100 days. Animals were randomly allocated in four groups, including nine lambs in each group. Lambs were maintained individually. Treatments were; Group 1: control (basal diet), Group 2: Rumenobuffer (two percent of the basal diet), Group 3: sodium bicarbonate (one percent of the basal diet), Group 4: mix herbs (two percent of the basal diet). During the experiment, performance, rumen pH, acidosis, rumen fluid parameters and blood parameters were recorded. In order to determine the animals with acidosis, those with symptoms of anorexia, diarrhea and undigested seeds in the stool, were selected, then the pH of the ruminal fluid of the animal was studied at 2, 4, 6, and 8 hours after feeding.
The results showed that daily gain, feed intake and feed conversion ratio improved compared to controls (P Due to better performance and reducing the production-cost in fattening lambs, using the Rumenobuffer supplementation up to 2 percent in feedlot diets is suggested.

Today, the cultivation of forage crops that are resistant and adaptable to dry conditions and droughts is important in Iran. Therefore, recently amaranth as a crop imported from abroad has entered to crop pattern of country. Since, very little research has been conducted on the possibility of using this crop as an animal feed, so, the aim of this study was to investigate the possibility of its ensiling and comparing with corn silage.
Green amaranth and corn forages were chopped into 5-3 cm pieces after harvesting. In order to produce silages, both forages separately were ensiled within polyethylene pipes with a 75 cm length and a 16 cm diameter (four replicates). Silos were opened and sampled at zero, 40 and 60 days after ensiling. Chemical composition, pH, chemical characteristics (water soluble carbohydrates, ammonia nitrogen and volatile fatty acid concentrations), digestibility (in vitro) and ruminal fermentation kinetics (gas production test) of both silages were determined at zero, 40 and 60 days.
Results showed that DM and CP of amaranth forage at all sampling times were significantly higher than those of corn forage (P Overall, according to the appropriate level of crude protein, cell wall components and digestibility of amaranth and its silage characteristics, such as pH and amount of the water soluble carbohydrates, this forage can be used as a fine silage in animal nutrition.

Siris (Albizia lebbeck) belongs to fabaceae family and is native to Africa, Asia, some areas of America and Australia. It is planted in Khuzestan, Bushehr, Fars and Hormozgan provinces in Iran. Siris leaf, flower and pod are valuable for ruminants. Therefore, this experiment carried out to survey gas production, in vitro digestibility and protozoa population in one-humped camel fed with diets containing Albizia lebbeck as replacement for alfalfa even to 100 percent.
Material and In this trial, Albizia lebbeck leaves were collected from Mollasani of Ahwaz. Four Arabian dromedary camels about five years old and 300±25 kg weight were selected and fed about one month with a diet 60 percent bagasse 40 percent alfalfa (diet without Albizia lebbeck) and a diet containing Albizia lebbeck (100 percent as replacement of alfalfa) with two replicates. At the end of experiment, rumen fluid was taken from fistulated camels fed with experimental diets and protozoa population, gas production and in vitro digestibility was determined.
According to results, no protozoa were found in the rumen fluid of camels fed with experimental diets. Significant difference in the gas production potential and rate of camels fed with experimental diets was observed (P0.05). Dry matter digestibility and neutral detergent fiber and acid detergent fiber of bagasse in camels fed with Albizia lebbeck and without Albizia lebbeck treatments was not difference (P>0.05). Also dry matter digestibility of soybean meal in camels fed with Albizia lebbeck and without Albizia lebbeck treatments was different (P Based on these results, any protozoa in the rumen fluid of camels fed with control and Albizia lebbeck diets was not found. With replacing 100 percent Albizia lebbeck leaf instead of alfalfa, gas production potential in the camels fed with experimental diet were higher in compared to the control diet. Digestibility of dry matter, neutral detergent fiber and acid of bagasse in animals had no significant difference. Therefore, Albizia lebbeck can be used in one humped camel diet.