Effect of adding a mixture of ground medicinal plants to the diets of suckling lambs on their performance [electronic resource].

Includes references.

The present study was conducted to investigate the effect of using mixture of ground Eucalyptus globules leaves, Nigella sativa and chamomile flower as natural feed additives, on lambs health and performance. For this purpose, Twenty four newly born lambs were randomly divided into three groups; their weights were recorded at birth then each two weeks interval. Lambs in the groups were left to suckle their mothers, in addition to one of the experimental creep diets (as creep feeding), which the first group (G1) fed diet without medicinal plants mixture (MPM) and serves as a control diet, second group (G2) fed diet contains 0.5% MPM, and the third group (G3) fed diet contains 1.0% MPM. The creep diets were offered daily started at 7th days of age until weaning. Blood samples were taken at 7 and 60 days of age. The results showed that glucose level was high at 7 days of age and decreased at 60 days of age in different groups. Blood serum glucose concentration was significantly lower (P≤0.05) for the groups received creep diets supplemented by MPM (G2 and G3) compared to the control group (G1), which the values represent 63.24 and 73.75 % for G2 and G3 versus G1. Insignificant differences (P>0.05) were observed in serum total protein, albumin, globulin and A/G ratio, also insignificant differences (P>0.05) were observed in serum urea-N concentration and enzymes activity of ALT and AST as well as triiodothyronin (T3). On the contrary, significant increased (P≤0.05) was noticed in weaning weight, total gain and average daily gain for the group received creep diets contain 0.5 % MPM (G2) compared to the control group (G1), while insignificant increased (p>0.05) for G2 compared to the group received creep diet containing 1% MPM (G3). It could be concluded that adding medicinal plants mixture to creep 'feeding diets improves suckling lambs' performance without any side effects on physiological body function of lambs.

Summary in Arabic.

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