Replacement of Maize Silage and Soyabean Meal with Mulberry Silage in the Diet of Hu Lambs on Growth, Gastrointestinal Tissue Morphology, Rumen Fermentation Parameters and Microbial Diversity

Abstract

Maize silage has a significant environmental impact on livestock due to its high requirement for fertilizer and water. Mulberry has the potential to replace much of the large amount of maize silage grown in China, but its feeding value in the conserved form needs to be evaluated. We fed Hu lambs diets with 20–60% of the maize silage replaced by mulberry silage, adjusting the soybean meal content when increasing the mulberry silage inclusion rate in an attempt to balance the crude protein content of the diets. Mulberry silage had higher crude protein and lower acidic and neutral detergent fiber contents compared to maize silage. Replacing maize silage and soyabean meal with mulberry silage had no effect on the feed intake and growth rate of Hu lambs. However, the rumen pH increased, the acetate to propionate in rumen fluid increased, and the rumen ammonia concentration decreased as mulberry replaced maize silage and soyabean meal. This was associated with an increase in norank_f__F082 bacteria in the rumen. Rumen papillae were shorter when mulberry silage replaced maize silage, which may reflect the reduced neutral detergent fiber (NDF) content of the original silage. In conclusion, mulberry silage can successfully replace maize silage and soyabeans in the diet of Hu lambs without loss of production potential, which could have significant environmental benefits.

Dietary Guanidine Acetic Acid Improves Ruminal Antioxidant Capacity and Alters Rumen Fermentation and Microflora in Rapid-Growing Lambs

“…UPARSE software (version 7.0.1090, (accessed on 9 October 2021)) was used to perform operational taxonomic unit (OTU) sequence clustering, and their relative abundances were used to calculate rarefaction curves and values of the Shannon Diversity Index using UPARSE version 7.1 ( (accessed on 8 November 2021)). The ribosomal database project (RDP) classifier ( (accessed on 8 November 2021)) was used to classify and annotate each sequence through comparison to Silva (Release132, (accessed on 8 November 2021)) with a comparison threshold of 70% [ 26 ]. Alpha diversity analysis that included the Sobs, Shannon, Ace and Coverage indices at the OTU level was conducted using Mothur software (version 1.30.2, (accessed on 8 November 2021)).…”

Effect of the Replacement of Maize Silage and Soyabean Meal with Mulberry Silage in the Diet of Hu Lambs on Growth Performance, Serum Biochemical Indices, Slaughter Performance, and Meat Quality

“…Due to the long test period, the nutritional value of feed ingredients in different batches and producing areas was different, and it eventually led to changes in proteins and other nutrients. However, this did not affect the physiology of Hu lambs, and they could meet their maximum growth needs [ 23 ].…”

Regulation of the growth performance and the gastrointestinal microbiota community by the addition of defective pear fermentation to feed of small-tailed Han sheep

“…Feed initially digested in the rumen turns into chyme, which is mainly digested and absorbed in the jejunum and ileum (Wang et al, 2020 ). Villus height (VH), crypt depth (CD), and the villus-to-crypt ratio (V/C) are critical indicators of the small intestine's health and the digestive and absorptive capacity of sheep (Han et al, 2022 ). VH determines the contact area between the intestinal lining and chyme and is positively correlated with this area (Awad et al, 2011 ).…”