Utilizing of celery and thyme as ruminal fermentation and digestibility modifier and reducing gas production

Abstract

Background and Objectives: Improving ruminant environmental impacts and productivity get a great interest in last years, herbal plants were investigated as feed additive for decreasing gas production from rumen and enhancing nutrients digestibility. So, in the current study was carried out to investigate the effect of supplementing ruminant diets with different levels of thyme or celery on rumen fermentation, digestibility and gas production. Materials and Methods: Seven experimental treatments were done using rumen in vitro batch culture technique. Treatments were: 60% CFM, 40% clover hay (control), control diet+5 g thyme kg-1 DM (T1), control diet+10 g thyme kg-1 DM (T2), control diet+20 g thyme kg-1 DM (T3), control diet+5 g-1 celery kg-1 DM (T4), control diet+10 g-1 celery kg-1 DM (T5), control diet+20 g celery kg-1 DM (T6), control diet+0.4 g salinomycin kg-1 DM (T7). Results: The obtained results showed no significant (p>0.05) change in ruminal pH, neutral detergent fiber (NDF) and acid detergent fiber (ADF) degradation. Thyme addition to diet (T1 and T2) significantly lowered (p<0.05) total gas production (TGP) compared with control (152, 152 vs. 157 mL, respectively). Dry matter and organic matter disappearance (DMd, OMd) appeared showed no significant difference (p<0.05) between control and thyme treatments (T1, T2 and T3) and celery treatments (T4, T5 and T6). Conclusion: It could be concluded the adding thyme or celery at low levels to ruminant diets could improve ruminal fermentation and reducing gas production without adverse effect on nutrients digestibility.