Effects of Supplementation of Rumen Protected Fats on Rumen Ecology and Digestibility of Nutrients in Sheep.

Simple Summary: Rising populations and urbanization are transforming into increased demand for livestock products, particularly in developing countries. The world will need more meat and more milk and in order to meet these demands, huge quantities of feed resources will be required. However, there is a substantial deficit of energy feeds affecting the growth and production of animals. The common method to increase energy value of ruminant diets is to provide them with fats. However, higher level of fats in the diet could prove toxic to rumen microbes and affect fibre digestibility, which ultimately results in reducing the feed intake and lowering animal production. These negative effects of fat supplementation can easily be overcome by feeding ruminants with specifically designed fats called rumen protected fats. In order to evaluate the efficacy of rumen protected fats (RPF), three different types of protected fats were examined in sheep. The results suggested that different types of protected fats have no unfavourable influences on the ruminal fermentation and productive parameters. Therefore, prilled fat, prilled fat with lecithin and calcium soaps did not improve animal performance as compared to the diet without protected fats in Dorper sheep. Rumen protected fats (RPF) are known to improve animal performance without affecting rumen metabolism in sheep. However, comparative effects of prilled fat, prilled fat with lecithin and calcium soap have not been fully studied. Hence this experiment was planned using 36 male Dorper sheep in a completely randomized design in four treatment groups. The diets included: Basal diet (70:30 concentrate to rice straw) with no added RPF as a control (CON), basal diet plus prilled fat (PF), basal diet plus prilled fat with lecithin (PFL) and basal diet plus calcium soap (CaS). The trial lasted 90 days following two weeks adaptation period. The body weights, average daily gain and gain to feed ratio were not affected by treatments. The intake and digestibilities of dry matter, organic matter, crude protein and neutral detergent fibre were not affected, while those for ether extract and crude fibre differed (p < 0.05). RPF had no effect on concentrations of ammonia nitrogen, total volatile fatty acids and total bacterial population. The concentrations of rumen total saturated fatty acids, unsaturated fatty acids, total n − 3, total n − 6, unsaturated fatty acids:saturated fatty acids and polyunsaturated fatty acids:saturated fatty acids differed (p < 0.05) among the treatments with RPF supplementation. Hence supplementation of different types of protected fats did not influence animal performance in Dorper sheep. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]