Effect of vitex agnus-castus on sheep rumen fluids using an in vitro gas production method
- Published
- Accepted
- Subject Areas
- Agricultural Science, Biochemistry
- Keywords
- Vitex agnus-castus, essential oil, feed digestibility, in vitro gas production
- Copyright
- © 2015 Önenç
- Licence
- This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ PrePrints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
- Cite this article
- 2015. Effect of vitex agnus-castus on sheep rumen fluids using an in vitro gas production method. PeerJ PrePrints 3:e908v1 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.908v1
Abstract
The objective of this study was to evaluate the effects of different levels of Vitex agnus-castus (VAC) on in vitro gas production (GP), organic matter digestibility (OMD) and net energy lactation (NEL) using an in vitro gas-production method. Two rumen-fistulated sheep were used in the experiment. The sheep were fed 60% alfalfa hay and 40% concentrate feed twice daily. Five different levels of VAC were added to the concentrate (CON) to produce 200 mg DM (CON - without VAC; 1 - 2 mg VAC+198 mg CON; 2 - 4 mg VAC+196 mg CON; 3 - 6 mg VAC+194 mg CON; 4 - 8 mg VAC+192 mg CON; 5 - 10 mg VAC+190 mg CON). The volume of gas produced was recorded at 2, 4, 8, 12, and 24 h after incubation. The results showed GP, OMD and NEL contents with no significant changes even as the level of VAC were added to the CON. VAC groups affected the rapidly degraded fractions; however, did not affect the slowly degraded fractions.
Author Comment
This is a submission to PeerJ for review.