《The effects of increasing the level of dietary wormwood》.pdf

Livestock Science 100 (2006) 261– 269 /locate/livsci The effects of increasing the level of dietary wormwood (Artemisia montana Pampan) on intake, digestibility, N balance and ruminal fermentation characteristics in sheep S.C. Kim a,b,*, A.T. Adesogan a, J.H. Shin b, M.D. Lee b, Y.D. Ko b a Department of Animal Sciences, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611, USA b Division of Applied Life Science, Faculty of Animal Science, Gyeongsang National University, Jinju 660-701, South of Korea Received 10 September 2005; received in revised form 10 September 2005; accepted 21 September 2005 Abstract This study investigated the effect of replacing concentrates with dry wormwood (Artemisia montana ) on the performance of sheep. Four Corriedale Polwarth sheep (41.3 F 1.3 kg) were fed diets with an 8:2 straw to supplement ratio, for four, consecutive 16 d periods (10 d adaptation, 6 d collection) in a 4 4 Latin square design. Supplements were made by substituting 0 (Control), 30 (LW), 50 (MW) or 100 (HW) g/kg DM of concentrate (15.6% CP, 72.1% of TDN) with dried, ground wormwood. Ruminal pH, NH3–N and volatile fatty acids (VFA) were measured on d 6 of collection. Ether extract (EE) intake was linearly decreased ( P b 0.001) with increasing wormwood inclusion, otherwise intake was unaffected. The Control diet had lower ( P b 0.05) DM and CP digestibility than LW and MW diets and lower EE digestibility than the LW diet. Retained N ( P b 0.05) and microbial N yield ( P b 0.01) linearly increased with dietary wormwood level, but efficiency of microbial N synthesis linearly decreased ( P b 0.001). Mean concentrations of rumen NH3–N, total VFA and propionic acid were quad- ratically increased (