Determination of appropriate levels of using Purslanes herb in the diet and its effect on digestive and fermentative activity of fungi or ruminal bacteria in lambs

Background and purpose:

Iran is the main habitat of many forage and medicinal species with good nutritional value. They grow under harsh environmental conditions such as low rainfall and drought and can be a good alternative to some common forage items such as alfalfa that often require very favorable conditions for their growth. The present study was to determine the appropriate level of replacement of purslane in the diet and its effect on the digestive and fermentative activity of microbial population, microorganisms isolated from rumen of lambs fed experimental diets.

Experimental treatments included control diet (no purslane supplement) and four diets containing levels of 25, 50, 75 and 100% purslane alfalfa. The gas production test was used to determine the appropriate replacement level. The amount of gas produced in the samples was recorded at 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 24, 48, 72 and 96 hours after incubation and the parameters of gas production, organic matter digestibility and metabolic energy were estimated. The digestibility of dry matter and organic matter was investigated under specific culture conditions of microorganisms. At this stage, the diets containing (0, 25, 50%) of the purslane plant selected from the experiment were tested with rumen of lambs fed the diets containing these treatments. The data were analyzed using a completely randomized design.

The results of this study showed that the level of 100% purslane replaced by alfalfa had the highest amount of gas production (25.80 ml) compared to other experimental diets and its difference with 25 and 50 % levels was not (P> 0.05). Fermentable fraction was higher in all levels of purslane and was significantly higher than control (P