Feeding either palm oil or sunflower oil on nutrient digestibility and blood metabolites in crossbred Thai native x Brahman bull

This experiment was conducted to investigate the effect of palm oil or sunflower oil supplementations on digestibility and blood metabolites in crossbred Thai native x brahman bulls fed on TMRused rice straw as a roughage source. Four, 2 year old crossbred Thai native x Brahman bulls were randomly assigned in a 2x2 factorial in 4 x 4 latin square design. Each period of feeding lasted for 21 days to receive four dietary treatments; 3% palm oil, 6% palm oil, 3% sunflower oil and 6% sunflower oil. All animals were fed with TMR ad-libitum. It was found that supplementation of palm oil and sunflower oil had no effect on digestibility of dry matter (DM), organic matter (OM), neutral detergent fiber (NDF) and crude protein (CP). Supplementation resulted in significant (P<0.05) lower acid detergent fiber (ADF) digestibility when feeding with palm oil on the other hand feeding beef cattle with 6% from palm oil and sunflower oil were higher Ether extract (EE) digestibility than 3% from twice oils (P<0.05). Blood glucose, blood urea nitrogen, cholesterol, triglyceride, high density lipoprotein and low density lipoprotein were not significant different among treatments. Based on this study, supplementing TMR sunflower oil in diets was suitable in beef cattle without any effect ruminal digestibility and blood metabolites.