Effects of fermented total mixed diets on growth performance, nutrient digestibility, serum indicators, rumen fermentation and rumen microbiota in Tibetan sheep

Abstract

The aim of this paper was to investigate the effects of unfermented and fermented total mixed ration (FTMR) on growth performance, nutrient digestibility, serum indices, rumen fermentation and rumen flora structure of Tibetan lambs. Twenty healthy male Tibetan lambs randomly divided into 2 treatment groups with 10 lambs/treatment. The TMR group was fed a non-fermented total mixed ration and the FTMR group was fed a fermented total mixed ration. The average daily gain was not statistically significant (P = 0.487). The total tract digestibility of neutral detergent fiber (NDF) was significantly higher (P = 0.005) in FTMR as compared TMR. The serum levels of total cholesterol (TC) (P= 0.001), low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) (P= 0.002), high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) (P= 0.019), creatinine (CR) (P= 0.047) and blood urea nitrogen (BUN) (P= 0.041) were significantly lower in FTMR group as compared to TMR. There were no significant differences (P > 0.05) in Ace index, Chao1 index, Simpson index and Shannon index of Tibetan sheep in FTMR group compared to TMR group. The relative abundance of Firmicutes and Euryarchaeota was significantly higher in FTMR group than in the TMR group (P < 0.05). The relative abundance of Prevotella was significantly higher, Methanobrevibacter was significantly lower in the FTMR group. In conclusion the FTMR can be fed to lambs without any adverse effects on serum chemistry, additionally FTMR improves average daily gain by 12 %, increase in Prevotella abundance and decrease in Methanobrevibacter.