Effect of Herbal Mixture with or without Probiotic on Digestion, Blood Metabolites, Growth Performance and Carcass Characteristics of Barki Lambs

Abstract

This study aimed to investigate the effect of herbal mixture with or without probiotic yeast on digestion, blood metabolites, immunity and antioxidant status, growth performance and carcass characteristics. Fifteen early weaned male Barki lambs (13.5 ± 0.82kg) were divided randomly into three groups (n=5/group) as follows: Group one (G1) was fed on basal diet that was consisted of concentrate feed mixture (CFM) and berseem hay as control; group two (G2) was fed on basal diet with herbal mixture (garlic, ginger, cumin and turmeric) at 1% of dry matter intake (DMI) and group three (G3) was the fed like G2 plus five gram per head of probiotic yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae). Animals were fed for seven months and twenty days. The combination of herbal mixture and yeast (G3) increased nutrients digestibility, nutritive value, growth rate, serum thyroid hormone, immunoglobulins and total antioxidant (P< 0.05). Meanwhile, the same group (G3) decreased predicted methane intensity, and carcass chilling loss (P< 0.05). Herbal mixture (G2) increased brightness and yellowness of meat color (P< 0.05). It could be concluded that the combination of herbal mixture with yeast made a positive synergistic effect on the performance of Barki lambs.