Composição microbiológica de dietas a base de palma forrageira e capim-buffel e sua relação com distúrbios nutricionais em ovinos

Abstract

The water deficit existing in arid and semi-arid regions makes forage cactus stand out as an alternative in ruminant feeding, but this, as it has a low level of neutral detergent fiber (NDF), must be supplied to animals in conjunction with sources of fiber such as buffel grass hay. The objective of this work was to evaluate the inclusion of buffel grass hay levels in diets based on cactus forage on metabolic disorders in confined sheep. The experiment was conducted on a private property, located in the city of São José dos Cordeiros-PB. Four diets constituted with different percentages of buffel grass hay were tested. The diets were composed of forage cactus, buffel grass hay and concentrate, and the treatments were represented by different levels of hay in the dry matter of the ration: T1: 7.5% buffel grass hay; T2: 15% buffel grass hay; T3: 30% buffel grass hay and; T4:45% buffel grass hay based on dry matter. The variables analyzed were: Escherichia coli and enterobacteria counts; fecal score; dry matter consumption; physiological parameters; blood count. The interaction effect of collection period and buffel grass hay levels was observed on the counts of Enterobacteria (P<0.0001) and E. Coli (P=0.0043) in leftover food and animal feces. The levels of buffel grass hay had a quadratic effect on dry matter intake (P=0.0101) with maximization of the DMI at the level of 25.3% of buffel grass hay. There was no interaction effect (P=0.9311) on the fecal score of the animals. However, there was a significant difference (P=0.0034) in the levels of buffel grass hay on this variable. There were significant changes (P<0.0001) in the blood parameters of sheep. Levels below 15% of buffel grass hay based on dry matter, in diets based on cactus forage, provides greater contamination of the diet and animal feces by enterobacteria, such as Escherichia coli, negatively modifying the blood and physiological parameters and increased incidence of diarrhea in confined sheep.