Abstract
The ban on antibiotics use in animal agriculture especially in Europe and the increased awareness of the consumers about the health hazards that occurs due to the use of antibiotics as feed additives in animal nutrition triggered a need for natural and safe feed additives such as plant extracts. Therefore, there is a need to explore/exploit different natural plant products to achieve better production in farm animals. Herbs and spices are known to have health benefits on animals when used as feed additives in animal nutrition. For effective use of herbs and spices, they can be added to feed as dried plants or as extracts. Ruminants have been adapted to fill an important ecological niche because of their specially adapted digestive tract that allows them to survive on fibrous feeds. However, the degradation of these feeds in the rumen leads to loss in terms of methane production and nitrogenous wastage. Methane loss represents about 12% of the gross energy of feed fed to the animals. Because of these reasons, there is need to manipulate the rumen microbial ecosystem for the purpose of improving ruminants production efficiency. Recently, many researchers have diverted their attentions to the use of extracts/meal from herbs and spices because of their great potentials. Many researches has been carried out by various researchers using different extracts/meal of some herbs and spices using in vitro gas production techniques to manipulate rumen microbial ecosystem in order to improve the productivity of ruminants. From the findings of these researches, it can be concluded that extracts of herbs and spices have a great potential in manipulating the process of rumen fermentation thereby reducing methane production, decreasing ammonium concentration and other rumen fermentation parameters.
Highlights
The ban on nutritive antibiotics use by the European Union (OJEU, 2003) in animal agriculture and the increased awareness of the consumers about the health hazards that occurs due to the use of antibiotics as feed additives in animal nutrition triggered a need for natural and safe feed additives such as organic acids, probiotics, prebiotics and plant extracts as a substitute to the use of antibiotics and other chemical sources in animal nutrition (Jayasena & Jo, 2013)
The residual effect of the antibiotics and other chemical sources found in meat and milk products can give rise to transmissible resistance factors that may lead to health problems and compromise the therapeutic use of antibiotic in humans (Casewell et al, 2003, Russell & Houlihan, 2003)
Cardozo et al (2005) tested the effect of six natural plant extracts and three secondary plant metabolites at five doses and two different pH (7.0 and 5.5) on in vitro microbial fermentation using ruminal fluid of heifers and the results showed that the effect of herbs and spices on ruminal fermentation in beef cattle may be different depending on the pH of the rumen
Summary
The ban on nutritive antibiotics use by the European Union (OJEU, 2003) in animal agriculture and the increased awareness of the consumers about the health hazards that occurs due to the use of antibiotics as feed additives in animal nutrition triggered a need for natural and safe feed additives such as organic acids, probiotics, prebiotics and plant extracts as a substitute to the use of antibiotics and other chemical sources in animal nutrition (Jayasena & Jo, 2013). About 75 to 85% of nitrogen consumed by dairy cows is excreted in the faeces and urine (Tamminga, 1992, Gunjan & Makkar, 2012, Patra, 2012) and it has negative impact on the environment by increasing nitrous oxide emissions in the atmosphere (Boadi et al, 2004) Because of these reasons, there is need to manipulate the rumen microbial ecosystem for the v.10, n.5, p.427-438, Mai., 2016. Rumen microbial population can be manipulated by adding extracts/meal of herbs and spices as feed additives to eliminate or reduce rumen ciliate protozoa (defaunation), reduce protein degradation and methane production. Many researches has been carried out by various researchers using different extracts/meal of some herbs and spices in association with various techniques to manipulate rumen microbial ecosystem in order to improve the productivity of ruminants The purpose of this review is to investigate the effect of extract/meal of some herbs and spices on rumen fermentation using in-vitro gas technique
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