The effects of adding thymus plant to lactating goats rations on digestibility parmeters and milk yield performance

This experiment was carried out in order to study the effects of adding the Thymus plant on dry matter intake, apparent digestibility of total rations, milk production and milk compositions of Mahabadi goat’s in a repeated 3×3 Latin square change over design. Six Mahabadi goats with same lactation number (2), days in milk (7 days) and body weight of (60±6 kg), received 3 experimental diets consist of basal rations (including alfalfa hay, corn silage, barley grain and soybean meal) plus 0 (control group), 25 and 50 grams per day of Thymus plant in 3 periods of 21 days (14 day for adaptation and 7 days for data collection). The results showed that using Thymus plant in the diets had not significantly effect on intake of DM, CP, NDF, ADF and EE. Average daily feed intake for control and other groups were 2.496, 2.464 and 2.430 kg/day respectively. For the control (0g/day), 25 and 50 g/d Thymus group apparent digestibility of DM were 71.87, 72.30 and 70.15%, digestibility of crude protein 69.68, 70,66 and 70.53%, and digestibility of NDF were 51.33, 56.14 and 51.19 respectively that were not significantly different between the groups. Milk production and milk composition also were not significantly affected by the experimental groups. Milk production for the experimental groups was 1.740, 1.812 and 1.812 kg per day respectively.