Effect of essential oil of cinnamon on performance, rumen microbial populations and fermentation and some blood parameters of sheep

Ruminant nutrition experts try to increase energy and protein yield by regulation of competence between different rumen bacteria. Essential oils can be used as a feed additive for improvement of feed yield and control of pathogens in animals. According to antioxidant and antimicrobial properties of cinnamon and few research about the effect of cinnamon and it’s essential oil on sheep rumen microbial and fermentation in vivo this experiment was conducted in order to investigate the effect of essential oil of cinnamon on performance, rumen microbial populations and fermentation and some blood parameters of sheep.
This study carried out using nine male dalagh sheep in a changeover design at three periods of 28 days, 14 days for adaptation and 7 days for sampling. Treatment 1: control (basal diet without essential oil), treatment 2: basal diet 흍 mg/day cinnamon essential oil and treatment 3: basal diet흭 mg/day of cinnamon essential oil. Sampling of rumen fluid was performed to determination of microbial populations and measurement of pH at three stage (before and 4 and 8 hours of morning feeding) on last day of each period. Blood sampling was conducted from the jugular vein in the end of each period. For assessing of cinnamon effect on sheep performance weighting was done on first day of each period and then weekly. Feed intake and feed residue was recorded daily. Data were analyzed by SPSS and mean comparison was done by tukey test.
The addition of cinnamon essential oil didn’t have any significant effect on pH, total bacterial population and lactic acid bacteria. Essential oil of cinnamon decreased rumen protozoa at 8 hour of morning feeding and increased coliform bacteria before morning feeding significantly (P0.05).
In conclusion, the results of this study show that cinnamon essential oil has a potential to alter rumen fermentation pattern although did not effect on performance and blood metabolites.