Influence of sudden intake at increasing levels of natural melon pulp on clinical, biochemical and ruminal parameters of sheep

Abstract

Due to the high availability of melon, this fruit has been used as an alternative feed source for sheep. If on one hand the use of fruit leftover has great potential to improve the productivity of sheep systems, allowing an intensification by semi-confinement or confinement, it is unclear what risks may cause such diet on animal health or the safety levels of use of this fruit to supplement sheep, thus requiring a full study, focused on changes that occur in the rumen, to clarify this important issue and allow the safe and proper use of this supplement for sheep in the creations of Brazil. Thus this study aims to determine the amount of ingested melon can cause varying degrees of rumen acidosis in sheep not adapted to diets rich in concentrates and evaluate the impact of supply melon with a high brix, suddenly, on the clinical, biochemical and hematological variables in sheep. Will be used 24 crossbred Santa Inês sheep, cannulated, with 25 kg and 8 months old, fed a basal diet of sole forage. Sheep will be divided into four groups of six animals each: G1 suddenly receive 25% of the diet DM melon, G2 50%, 75% G3. Blood and rumen content samples will be taken at time zero (before delivery of the melon), and at 0, 3, 6, 12, 18, 24, 36 and 48 hours after the offer of the diet. Blood samples will be used for blood gas analysis and determination of osmolality and concentration of total lactic acid, biochemical analysis and globular volume determination. In the rumen content will be held the pH, total, L and D lactic acid, reduction time of methylene blue and concentrations of VFA. For an overall assessment of the variables during the study will be applied analysis of variance with repeated measures, followed by test of Bonferroni. (AU)