Effect of Forage on Rumen Development and Performance of Newborn Balouchi Lambs

Document Type : Scientific - Research Articles

Authors

• mohammad ali norouzian ¹
• Reza Valizadeh ²
• Abolghasem Nabipour ³
• Abbas Ali Naserian ²
• Abdolmansour Tahmasebi ⁴

¹ Department of Animal Science, Aburihan Campus, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran

² Department of Animal Science, Faculty of Agriculture, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran

³ Department of Histology, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran

⁴ Dept. of Animal Science, College of Agri. Ferdowsi University of Mahhad, Mashhad, Iran

10.22067/ijasr.v3i3.11299

Abstract

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An experiment was conducted by incorporating 35 newborn Balouchi lambs to study the effects of different type and levels of forage in starter diets on rumen development characteristics and performance. The 5 experimental treatments were included; starter diet without forage (control) and starter diet containing two levels (7.5 and 15%) of alfalfa hay and wheat straw. Inclusion of forages increased abrasive value (P=0.001), average particle size (P=0.006), peNDF (P=0.0002), BUN (P

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