Impact of lemongrass and galangal as feed additives on performance of lactating Barki goats

Abstract

Background: The current study was carried out to investigate addition of lemongrass or galangal to diet and its effect of productive performance of lactating Barki goats. Materials and Methods: Thirty lactating Barki goats were divided into three groups (10 animals per each treatment), first group was fed control diet without additives, consist of Egyptian clover hay, corn silage and concentrate feed mixture (10:30:60% on DM basis, respectively) (Control); second group was fed control diet plus 4 g of lemongrass kg-1 DM and the third group was fed control diet plus 4 g galangal kg-1 DM. Results: The results showed that adding galangal increased propionate concentrations (p<0.05) compared with control (41.13, 37.75 and 39.46 mM for galangal, control and lemongrass, respectively); while, there were no differences (p>0.05) between treatments in acetate and butyrate concentrations. Ammonia concentration was higher (p<0.05) in lemongrass compared with other treatments (21.49, 15.92 and 15.91 mM for lemongrass, control and galangal, respectively). Milk yield were significantly increased (p<0.05) by adding lemongrass or galangal to the diets (825 and 771 g day-1 for lemongrass and galangal) compared with control (652 g day-1). Also, milk lactose content was significantly increased (p<0.05) in lemongrass compared with control (44, 40 and 39 g kg-1 for lemongrass, control and galangal, respectively). Conclusion: It could be concluded that adding lemongrass or galangal the diet could enhance the performance of lactating Barki goat.