Study On The Associative Effect Of Forage In Penfeeding Sheep

The emergence of Associative Effect Theory makes a huge challenge to the present ruminant feeding standard, because the traditional way that each nutrient factor was added to one group in brief has no longer adapted to the livestock development However, because the Associative Effect has not been systematized and is far away from extensive application, we will investigate the theories and the practices of the Associative Effect based on the actual circumstance of the Songnen Plains.The objectives of these experiments were to study the Positive Associative Effects of supplementing cornstalk-based diets with different levels of alfalfa on nutrient intake, rumen environment, nutrient digestibility, N metabolisation and hematological parameter in order to evaluate the minimal amount of alfalfa needed to produce such an effect and its certain mechanism in sheep. In this experiment. 5 ruminally fistulated Xiaowei sheep were fed five cornstalk-based diets in a 5X5 Latin square design. Five diets contain 0, 50, 150, 300, 450g alfalfa respectively, each diet was supplemented with 100g concentrate, and the cornstalk was consumed randomly.The results indicated that the intake of cornstalk declined significantly with the addition of 150g alfalfa compared with the diets supplemented 0, 50g(P<0.05), observing no further improvement with the higher amounts of alfalfa Dry matter intake (DMI) increased (P<0.05) with the addition of 300g alfalfa compared with diets of 0, 50, 150g alfalfa, but dry matter digestibility (DMD) did not change significantly. The utilization efficiency of diet N was highest at 150g alfalfa (P<0.05). The serum GLU, ALP, ALB showed no significant change (P>0.05). The serum AST declined when the alfalfa was added to the diets, and the serum ALT increased (P<0.05) with the addition of 150~300g alfalfa. The serum TP increased with the increment of alfalfa. The serum Urea N concentration increased because of the Associative Effect when adding 150~300g alfalfa. In this experiment or under this condition of diet, Positive Associative Effect among the cornstalk, alfalfa and concentrate was observed when adding 150~300g alfalfa. Based on this experiment, the Associative Effect may be associated with hematology. The diets influenced the process of digestion by changing the content of some components in blood. Therefore, we maybe quantify the Associative Effect from the angle of the hematology.