Abstract
ABSTRACT The objective was to evaluate the effect of replacing soybean meal with the detoxified castor bean cake on testicular morphometry and spermatogenesis of sheep. Were used 24 uncastrated, 9-month old sheep weighing 29±0.8 kg they were randomly distributed among three treatments: T1 = 0%, T2 = 50%, and T3 = 100% substitution of soybean meal with detoxified castor bean cake. The animals were fed with Aruana grass pastage (Panicum maximum ‘Aruana’) and a ration for 90 days. After slaughtering, the testicles were collected and histological slides were prepared with tissue fragments. The data were evaluated for normality using the Shapiro-Wilk test, and analysis of variance was carried out at 5% level of significance. Substitution of soybean meal with detoxified castor bean cake had no effect on any of the assessed variables at the tested levels (P >0.05). The mean yield of spermatogenesis was 72.91 rounded spermatids per spermatogonium; the mean of total number of germ cells held by a Sertoli cell was 12.09; the mean of the testicular spermatic reserve was 31.82×109 and that per testicular gram was 238.28×106; the mean of daily spermatic production was 3.03×109 and that per testicular gram was 22.69×106; and the total number of Sertoli cells was 4.15×109 and that per testicular gram was 34.51×106. The results show that it is possible to replace 100% of the soybean meal with detoxified castor bean cake in sheep diet without any effects on spermatogenesis; however, it is important to perform seminal evaluations in future studies.
Highlights
Animal feeding represents a bigger proportion of the production cost, this on account of the high prices of the traditionally used concentrated feed
6.59±1.37 Sertoli cells were observed per transverse section of the seminiferous tubule
The mean of primary spermatocytes in different phases of development was inferior to the values observed by Martins et al (2008) when spermatogenesis parameters were evaluated (36.7±9.5 spermatocytes in PQ) in thirteen-month-old SRD sheep, and by Oliveira et al (2015) when soybean meal was replaced with the undetoxified castor bean cake in the goat diet (21.2±0.2 spermatocytes in PQ)
Summary
Animal feeding represents a bigger proportion of the production cost, this on account of the high prices of the traditionally used concentrated feed. This drives research focused on alternative foods, with the main goal of reducing this cost without changing parameters such as weight gain, carcass quality, reproductive performance (Santos et al, 2016). One of the alternative to reduce the cost of animal feed is via the use of byproducts of biofuel production. Presence of antinutritional factors in the endosperm of the castor bean seeds, limits the exploitation of this sub-product for animal feeding (Souza et al, 2018). Among the toxic principles present in castor bean, ricin is considered the most lethal substance (composed of two subunits (36 kDa) and B (29 kDa) linked by bridges disulfídic) and a pretreatment such as detoxification by autoclaving and calcium hydroxide solution is necessary when the seed is intended for animal feeding; ricin can be entirely eliminated via this process (Gomes et al, 2017)
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