Study on nutrient apparent digestibility,digestive enzyme activity,and digestive tract tissue morphology between cashmere castrated lambs and female lambs under grazing and supplemental feeding conditions
CHANG Hongbo
WEN Qi
ZHAO Yanli
GUO Yongmei
ZHANG Qingyue
YAN Sumei
Abstract：The experiment aimed to investigate the differences in dry matter intake,nutrient apparent digestibility,digestive tract tissue morphology,and enzyme activities among lambs of different genders of Arbas white cashmere goats under the conditions of grazing and supplementary feeding.A total of 40 Arbas white cashmere goats weaned at four months of age were selected and divided into castrated lamb group(CL group)and female lamb group(FL group)according to different genders,with 20 replicates in each group and one lamb in each replicate.Each lamb was supplemented with 300 g of corn(air-dry base)per day.The pre-test period was seven days and the formal test period was 90 days.The results showed that compared with the FL group,the dry matter intake,apparent digestibility of crude protein and crude fat in the CL group during the whole fattening period were significantly increased(P＜0.05).At the middle and late stages of fattening,the apparent digestibility of dry matter in the CL group was significantly increased(P＜0.05).At the early stage of fattening,the apparent digestibility of neutral detergent fiber in the CL group was significantly decreased(P＜0.05),while at the late stage of fattening,the apparent digestibility of neutral detergent fiber and acid detergent fiber in the CL group were significantly increased(P＜0.05).Compared with the FL group,the ileum amylase activity in the CL group was significantly decreased(P＜0.05),the pancreas amylase activity was significantly increased(P＜0.05),lipase activity in the duodenum and pancreas was significantly increased(P＜0.05),and trypsin activity in the ileum and pancreas was significantly increased(P＜0.05),jejunal trypsin activity was increased(P＞0.05).Compared with the FL group,the rumen wall thickness and muscle layer thickness in the CL group were increased(P＞0.05).The length of duodenal villi and the ratio of villi to crypts were significantly increased(P＜0.05),and the depth of crypts was significantly decreased(P＜0.05).The depth of jejunal recess was significantly decreased(P＜0.05).The study indicates that the dry matter intake,nutrient apparent digestibility,rumen development,intestinal morphology,and digestive enzyme activity of the castrated lambs are better than those of the female lambs.
Keywords：castrated lambsfemale lambsnutrient apparent digestibilitydigestive enzyme activitydigestive tract tissue morphology
Publication Date：2025-08-28
Online Publishing Date：2025-10-28(First online date of this platform, not the publication date of the document)
Pages：5( 1-5 )