Abstract
The aim of this work was to evaluate, by an untargeted metabolomics approach, changes of milk metabolites induced by the replacement of soybean hulls with cocoa husks in the ewes’ diet. Animals were fed with a soybean diet integrated with 50 or 100 g/d of cacao husks. Milk samples were analyzed by an ultra high performance liquid chromatograph coupled to a time of flight mass spectrometer (UHPLC-QTOF-MS) platform. Multivariate statistical analysis showed that the time of sampling profoundly affected metabolite levels, while differences between treatments were evident at the fourth week of sampling. Cocoa husks seem to induce level changes of milk metabolites implicated in the thyroid hormone metabolism and ubiquinol-10 biosynthesis.
Highlights
In the Mediterranean basin, where dairy sheep and goats breeding is widespread, the use of agricultural by-products in the diet of small ruminants is an ancient practice.Today the great availability of agro-industrial by-products produced worldwide opens the door to other products to be tested
Cocoa husks represent the part of cocoa pod left over and are the principal by-products derived from Theobroma cacao L., representing an important crop for many tropical developing countries
100 g/d per head of soybean hulls (CH0 group); (b) half of the soybean hulls supplement was replaced with 50 g/d per head of cocoa husks (CH50 group); and (c) soybean hulls was totally replaced with 100 g/d per head of cocoa husks (CH100 group)
Summary
In the Mediterranean basin, where dairy sheep and goats breeding is widespread, the use of agricultural by-products in the diet of small ruminants is an ancient practice. Today the great availability of agro-industrial by-products produced worldwide opens the door to other products to be tested. Several positive aspects were observed when agro-industrial by-products (e.g., grape, olive, tomato, citrus pulp and myrtle residues) were included in the diet of small dairy ruminants. It has been reported that the diet implementation with these by-products has beneficial effects on ruminal metabolism, animal health, and quality of derived products [1,2,3]. Cocoa husks represent the part of cocoa pod left over and are the principal by-products derived from Theobroma cacao L., representing an important crop for many tropical developing countries. Husks represent 70–75% of the fruit weight [4]
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