Intake of Spineless Cladodes of Opuntia ficus-indica During Late Pregnancy Improves Progeny Performance in Underfed Sheep
| العنوان: | Intake of Spineless Cladodes of Opuntia ficus-indica During Late Pregnancy Improves Progeny Performance in Underfed Sheep |
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| المؤلفون: | Juan Manuel Vazquez Garcia, Jorge Urrutia Morales, Morteza Hosseini-Ghaffari, Graeme Martin, Cesar A. Meza-Herrera, Manuel de Jesús Flores Nájera, Alfonso J. Chay-Canul, Francisco Santiago Hernandez, Venancio Cuevas Reyes, Antonio Gonzalez-Bulnes, Cesar A. Rosales Nieto |
| المصدر: | Animals : an Open Access Journal from MDPI Animals Volume 10 Issue 6 Animals, Vol 10, Iss 995, p 995 (2020) |
| بيانات النشر: | MDPI, 2020. |
| سنة النشر: | 2020 |
| مصطلحات موضوعية: | Opuntia spp, sheep, 040301 veterinary sciences, Opuntia ficus, Birth weight, postnatal performance, Article, 0403 veterinary science, chemistry.chemical_compound, Animal science, lcsh:Zoology, Cladodes, medicine, Weaning, Ammonium, lcsh:QL1-991, Pregnancy, lcsh:Veterinary medicine, General Veterinary, biology, 0402 animal and dairy science, food and beverages, birth weight, 04 agricultural and veterinary sciences, biology.organism_classification, medicine.disease, 040201 dairy & animal science, Late pregnancy, chemistry, Urea, lcsh:SF600-1100, Animal Science and Zoology, cactus |
| الوصف: | The present study tested whether feeding ewes during the last third of pregnancy with cladodes of Opuntia (untreated or protein-enriched), as an alternative to alfalfa hay, would improve milk yield as well as the pre- and post-natal growth of their lambs. Sixty mature Rambouillet ewes and their progeny were randomly allocated among three nutritional treatments: (i) Control, fed alfalfa (ii) Opuntia, fed untreated cladodes (iii) E-Opuntia, fed protein-enriched cladodes (pre-treated with urea and ammonium sulphate). Birth weight did not differ among treatments (p > 0.05) but Control ewes produced more milk than both groups of Opuntia-fed ewes (p < 0.05). However, milk yield was not related to the growth of the progeny (p > 0.05) because lambs from E-Opuntia-fed ewes grew faster (p < 0.01) and were heavier at weaning (p < 0.05) than lambs from the other two groups. We conclude that Opuntia (with or without protein enrichment) can be used as an alternative to alfalfa hay for feeding ewes during the last third of pregnancy and therefore reduce production costs under extensive conditions in arid and semiarid regions. Moreover, protein-enriched Opuntia appears to improve postnatal lamb growth. |
| وصف الملف: | application/pdf |
| اللغة: | English |
| تدمد: | 2076-2615 |
| URL الوصول: | https://explore.openaire.eu/search/publication?articleId=doi_dedup___::7c671db435ebbdb317c26e629d8a980c http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC7341186 |
| حقوق: | OPEN |
| رقم الأكسشن: | edsair.doi.dedup.....7c671db435ebbdb317c26e629d8a980c |
| قاعدة البيانات: | OpenAIRE |
| تدمد: | 20762615 |
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