Effect of Including the Leaves of Calligonum polygonides or Acacia tortilis as a component in Grass Based Complete Diet on Gas Production and Rumen Fermentation

Plant species as modulating agents are being aggressively investigated to increase efficiency of rumen fermentation. Calligonum polygoides and Acacia tortilis are important desert plant species, which can serve as top feeds for ruminant feeding. An experiment was conducted to evaluate mature Lasiurus sindicus based complete feed (Roughage: concentrate ratio; 75:25) with different levels (0, 5, 10%) of C. polygonoides or A. tortilis leaves using gas production technique. Leaves of C. polygonoides and A. tortilis contained 59 and 25 g/kg condensed tannins (CT) and 228 and 70 g/kg total phenols, respectively. Inclusion of both kinds of leaves did not exert any influence on gas production. However, the gas production constant (‘c’) was 0.090 in complete feed and it increased significantly (P<0.05) with both the supplements when included in complete feed. The contents of CT (r= -0.643; P=0.045) or Total phenol (r= -0.619; P= 0.057) were negatively correlated with TNDFD. Ammonia-N was negatively correlated with CT (r= -0.516; P=0.127) or Total phenols (r= -0.605; P= 0.064) content. The protozoa count (10⁵/dl) was 31.12 in complete feed and their number decreased by 25% in feed containing 10% C. polygonoides leaves, the effect being linear (P=0.026), with respect to the level of these leaves in the diets.