Effect Of γ-aminobutyric Acid On Growth Performance And Blood Paramenters Of Growing Sheep

This experiment was conducted to study the effect of γ-aminobutyric acid(GABA) on growth performance, the concentration of GABA, BUN, IgA, IgG and hormone level in plasma of growing sheep, to provide theoretical gudiance for application of GABA in sheep production.Experiment 1: Effect of GABA on weight gain and blood parameters of lambs aged one to three months. Sixty-eihgt lambs at 1-month-aged with 12.35±1.25 kg of average body weight were allocated into four groups and fed with 0, 10, 20, 40 mg/d GABA.The results showed as follows: compared to control group, lambs fed with 40 mg/d GABA can significantly improved the daily gain of lambs(P<0.05),and improved the content of NPY in plasma of lambs(P<0.05).Feeding GABA also had no significant effect on the concentration of BUN, GABA, IgA, IgG, and the level of GH, SS, GAS, CCK in plasma of lambs(P>0.05).Experiment 2: Effects of GABA on the growth performance and blood parameters of sheep aged six to eight months. Thirty-two sheep were randomly allocated to four groups. Added with 0, 30, 60, 120 mg/d GABA which were supplement in basic diet. The results showed as follows: GABA improved the daily intake significantly(P<0.05) and reduced weight ratio significantly(P<0.01), increased the daily weight gain of sheep(P>0.05). Compared with control group, sheep fed with 30 mg/d GABA can significantly improved the NPY from the plasma of 26.01 %(P<0.05), 20.98 %(P<0.05) at the test of 30 d and 45 d; and the GAS also respectively improved of 19.46 %(P<0.05), 29.16 %(P<0.05), 33.08 % at the test of 15 d, 30 d and 45 d. Feeding GABA had no significant effect on the concentration of BUN GABA and the level of GH, SS, GAS in plasma(P>0.05).It was concluded that GABA could improved the sheep growth performance and the optimal doses of GABA were 30-40 mg/d. The effect of GABA on feed take may be associated by adjusting the NPY and GAS methbolic pathways.