Effects of processed recycled poultry bedding with tannins extracted from pomegranate peel on the nutrient digestibility and growth performance of lambs

The aim of this experiment was to decrease the rumen degradability rate of recycled poultry bedding (RPB) protein using pomegranate peel extract (PPE) as the tannin source. Furthermore, to study the effects of this processing method on nutrient digestibility, rumen and blood parameters, nitrogen retention, growth performance, carcass characteristics of male Arabi lambs, and the economic value of diets and production. Thirty-two Arabi lambs (19.7 ± 2.45 kg bodyweight, 90 ± 12 days old) were randomly assigned to one of four dietary treatments including a control and RPB treated with 20%, 25% and 30% PPE on a dry matter basis. Compared with the control, treatment of RPB with PPE did not affect apparent digestibility of dry matter, organic matter, neutral detergent fibre or acid detergent fibre. However, apparent crude protein digestibility decreased significantly. Dietary treatments had no effect on ruminal pH, although ammonia-nitrogen and blood urea nitrogen concentration decreased in diets containing RPB treated with PPE. All lambs were in a positive nitrogen balance and the highest nitrogen retention was observed in the dietary group that was fed RPB treated with 25% PPE. Adding PPE to RPB up to 25% significantly increased final bodyweight, total gain, average daily gain and warm carcass weight, and improved the economic values of production as it decreased the price of each kilogram diet and cost per unit of production (each kilogram bodyweight). The dry matter intake and gain efficiency were unaffected by treatments. Therefore, treatment of RPB with 25% PPE in the finishing diets of Arabi lambs improved growth performance and nitrogen metabolism without affecting feed intake and gain efficiency, and warm carcass weight, and improved the economic values of production.Keywords: ammonia nitrogen, blood urea nitrogen, carcass characteristics, economic analysis, nitrogen balanc

Effects of Cadmium on Rumen Fermentation and Nutrient Digestibility Using Dual Flow Continuous Culture System

This experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of different doses of cadmium on fermentation characterization and nutrient digestibility using dual flow continuous culture system. Eight dual-flow, continuous culture fermenters were used in 2 replicated periods of 10 d (7 d of adaptation and 3 d of sampling). Fermenters were inoculated with a composited ruminal fluid from 3 beef steers fed a high concentrate diet for at least 2 mo before the beginning of the trial. Anaerobic conditions were maintained by the infusion of N2 at a rate of 40 mL/min. Temperature (38.5°C) and liquid (10%/h) and solid (5%/h) dilution rates were kept constant. Fermenters were fed daily with 120 g dry matter in three equal portions. Treatments arranged as complete randomized block design with control and addition three levels of cadmium (0.1, 1 and 10 mg/l) to the high concentrate diet (15:85 forage to concentrate ratio). Organic matter, dry matter, NDF and ADF digestibility significantly decreased with the addition of 1 and 10 mg/l cadmium to the culture media compered to control treatment (P<0.05). Cadmium significantly decreased total volatile fatty acids concentration, acetate proportion and acetate to propionate ratio. Propionate and butyrate proportion increased significantly in response to cadmium addition (P<0.05). Concentration of NH3-N was significantly decreased in 1 and 10 mg/l cadmium treatments compared with control treatment. The results of this study suggest that cadmium in doses of 1 mg/l or more had strong inhibitory effect on mixed rumen microorganisms

Evaluation of the effect of fat content of sunflower meal on rumen fungi growth and population by direct (quantitative competitive polymerase chain reaction) and indirect (dry matter and neutral detergent fibre disappearance) methods

The major aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of fat content of sunflower meal (150 and 30 g fat /kg dry matter, high and low fat, respectively) on population, growth and activity of rumen anaerobic fungi by using direct (quantitative competitive polymerase chain reaction, QC-PCR) and indirect (dry matter (DM) and neutral detergent fibre (NDF) disappearance in rumen fungi media culture for 12 days) methods. The results of QC-PCR showed that rumen anaerobic fungi population in the medium containing high fat sunflower meal was greater as compared to low fat sunflower meal (+0.14 vs. +0.10) (P&lt;0.05). Also, disappearance of dry matter after 12 days incubation with rumen fungi will be 36.1 and 35.7 g/100 g DM for high and low fat sunflower meal, respectively) (P&gt;0.05). High fat of sunflower meal caused increase in natural detergent fibre disappearance 12 days after culturing as compared to low fat sunflower meal (145.2 vs 139.2 mg/g dry matter, respectively) (P&lt;0.05). Therefore, it appears that fat content of sunflower meal does not negatively affect the population, growth and activity of rumen fungi.Key words: Fat, sunflower meal, rumen fungi, quantitative competitive polymerase chain reaction, disappearance

Effect of Carbohydrate Source and Addition Canola Seed on Growth Performance and Nutrient Digestibility of Lambs

The objective of this study was to investigate effects of partial replacement of starch with neutral detergent soluble fiber with or without roasted canola seed as a fat source, and possible interactions on apparent digestibility and growth performance of growing lambs. For this purpose, 24 male lambs were used in a completely randomized design with a 2×2 factorial arrangement of treatments. Dietary treatments were 1- starch from barley, 2- starch from barley with roasted canola seed, 3- soluble fiber from beet pulp, and 4- soluble fiber from beet pulp with roasted canola seed. The experimental period was 84 days and forage:concentrate ratio was 10:90 for all diets. Treatments had no significant effect on the dry matter intake, feed conversion ratio, apparent digestibility of protein and organic matter (p>0.05). High starch diets compared with high soluble fiber diets caused a significant decrease in the digestibility of dry matter, organic matter, ADF and NDF (p<0.01). Canola seed addition to the diets significantly decreased ADF and NDF digestibility (p<0.01). The carbohydrate source by canola seed interaction was significant for weight gain and rumen pH (p<0.01) indicating that addition of canola seed to high starch diet increased weight gain and rumen pH more dramatically in comparison with soluble fiber diet (p<0.01). It is concluded that addition of canola seed to high starch diet had favorable effects on growth performance and rumen pH but because of its negative effect on fiber digestibility and its different response depend on carbohydrate source, more research is needed for conclusion

Compact Broadband Antenna with Vicsek Fractal Slots for WLAN and WiMAX Applications

This paper aims to design a compact broadband antenna for wireless local area network (WLAN) and worldwide interoperability for microwave access (WIMAX) applications. The suggested antenna consists of an octagonal radiator with Vicsek fractal slots and a partial ground plane, it is printed on FR-4 dielectric substrate, and its global dimension is 50 x 50 x 1.6 mm(3). The antenna is designed and constructed using both CST MICROWAVE STUDIO(R) and CADFEKO electromagnetic solver, and in order to validate the acquired simulation results, the antenna is manufactured and tested using vector network analyzer E5071C. The measurement results show that the designed antenna attains a broadband bandwidth (S-11 &lt; -10 dB) from 2.48 to 6.7 GHz resonating at 3.6 and 5.3 GHz, respectively. The broadband bandwidth covers the two required bands: WiMAX at the frequencies 2.3/2.5/3.3/3.5/5/5.5 GHz and WLAN at the frequencies 3.6/2.4-2.5/4.9-5.9 GHz. In addition, the suggested antenna provides good gains of 2.78 dBi and 5.32 dBi, omnidirectional measured radiation patterns in the E-plane and the H-plane and high efficiencies of 88.5% and 84.6% at the resonant frequencies. A close agreement of about 90% between simulation and measurement results is noticed

Combined Approximate Entropy Model and ANNs to Predict Inflow at Gorganrood River

Prediction of river inflow along with other parameters such as sediment load, flood magnitude, and so on plays an important role in Water Resources Management planning and reservoir operation program. In this regard, many attempts have been devoted so far by the researchers to predict inflow or flow discharge in the rivers. One of the most important rivers in the Golestan province that highly influences climate changing is Gorganrood river. Assessment of chaotic behavior of time series like inflows of rivers by the entropy measure is an important facility in Water Resources Management projects. In addition, this tool can be employed to extract the number of embedding dimensions to predict time series by models like the ARIMA and ANNs. To this end, this paper employed the capability of Approximate Entropy (ApEn) measure as one of the famous models to capture irregular behavior of a time series. Then, ARIMA and ANNs models are implemented to predict monthly inflows at Gorganrood River as the biggest river in Golestan province. The models are developed by using AQqala and Ghazaghli hydrometric stations gathered data. Final results show that at AQqala and Ghazaghli stations, to have an informative predictor model, the number of embedding dimensions must be set to 12 and 10, respectively. In addition, it is concluded that the developed models are accurate enough to be applied in another period of the times in the studied case. Sensitivity analysis of the ARIMA and ANNs models versus various embedding dimensions proves extracted values of embedding dimensions obtained by the ApEn. In addition, the evaluation of the ApEn curves proves the effect of the constructed dams like Voshmgir, Golestan, and Boustan dams on the environmental process and river behavior. The sensitivity analysis versus embedding dimensions clarifies the effects of these parameters over ARIMA and ANNs models

The Effect of Processing of Sugarcane Pith with Steam on Gas Production Parameters by Using Isolated Rumen Microbiota

This experiment was conducted to determine the effect of procceesing of sugarcane pith with high pressure steam (210-220C◦, at 19 bar, over 3 min, on 70 % moisture) on fermentative activity and gas production parameters and degradation by pure microorganism of rumen. The microbial different groups of rumen were separated by physical and chemical methods and using antibiotics. These microbial groups were including; total microorganism, fungi, bacterial, protozoal, fungi and bacteria, bacteria and protozoa and fungi and protozoa. Gas production parameters after 96 h incubation by these microbial groups were determined by the exponential equation. The processing with steam significantly increased rate and gas production from fermentable fraction of sugarcane pith by all rumen microbial groups. The highest gas production from fermentable fraction (193.25 ml) and rate of gas production (0.09 ml/h) by rumen microorganism was for sugarcane pith processed with steam. The highest gas production was observed by total rumen microorganism and the lowest was for rumen protozoa. Therefore, the result of experiment showed that high pressure steam without detrimental effects can improve digestion and fermentation of sugarcane pith

The Comparison of Rumen Fungi Quantification in the Medium Containing Sunflower Meal Treated with Formaldehyde and or Sodium Hydroxide by Using Quantitative Competitive PCR

The method of quantitative competitive polymerase chain reaction (QC-PCR) was conducted to compare the number of rumen anaerobic fungi in pure culture of fungi containing high fat sunflower meal (165 g fat/kg DM) processed with formaldehyde and NaOH. Twenty one multiparous early lactating Holstein cows (30±5 days of lactation) selected and fed experimental diets for 7 weaks. The diets were including untreated sunflower meal (control, n=3) and treated 4 % sodium hydroxide (n=3) and treated with 0.3 and 0.6 % formaldehyde (n=3). Competitive PCR technique was used to evaluate quantitative difference of anaerobic fungal population in the rumen under the dietary treatments. Standard control DNA was constructed from lambda phage for use in the competitive PCR and was shown to amplify under the same reaction condition and with the same amplification efficiency as the target DNA. The relative intensities of PCR products were used to evaluate variety of fungal population under fed treatments. The analysis of data of present study showed that NaOH treated sunflower meal increased and formaldehyde treated sunflower meal decreased number of fungi in medium compared to control. Therefore it seems that QC-PCR method has appropriate efficacy for enumerating rumen fungal population under the effect of dietary treatments