Effects of using wheat processed by different methods on the performance, chemical composition and blood digestibility in fattening lambs

The wheat as a main cultured grain in Iran can be used in animal nutrition. Urea as a nitrogen source combined with NaoH and formaldehyde can be slowly used by microorganisms. On the other hand, different physical processing methods can affect on degradability of nutrients in the rumen and other parts of gastrointestinal tract. Therefore, the aim of this research was to study the effects of using wheat processed by different methods on the performance, chemical composition and blood digestibility in fattening lambs.
Thirty male lambs with an initial body weight of 31.21 ± 3 kg were used in a completely randomized design for an 84-day feeding experiment with a 14-day adaptation period. Experimental treatments included: 1- whole wheat, 2- milling wheat, 3- milling wheat.5% urea.5 % NaoH, 4- milling wheat 3.5% urea 0.6 % formaldehyde, 5- pelleted wheat.5% urea.5 % NaoH, 6- pelleted wheat 3.5% urea 0.6 % formaldehyde. Five lambs were then randomly allocated to each treatment. At the 70 day of the period, feces and feed intake samples were collected to determine nutrient digestibility by acid insoluble ash method.
Results indicated that chemical-physical processing of grain wheat had significant effect compare to control group on daily weight gain of lambs (P0.05).
For feed conversion ratio (FCR) results showed that chemical-physical processing lead to improvement in feed conversion ratio (FCR) compare to control and grinding treatments (P0.05).
The result of this study showed that based on positive effects of processing wheat on growth performance and digestibility of nutrients, by suitable processing method, wheat can be effectively used as a source of of energy for ruminants.