Abstract
Optimum animal production depends on the type of feedstuffs available for the whole year. Plants such as trees and shrubs have significance in the animal production due to high nutritious values of tannins which reduce the rumen protein degradability and improve the feed digestibility as well as amino acid absorption in the small intestine. But, some of these plant materials are usually rich in anti-nutritional factors, known as tannins. Tannins are a complex group of plant secondary compounds widely distributed in the plant kingdom. Tannins have both deleterious and advantageous effects depending on the types, doses, composition and concentration of tannins. Rural farmers face fodder scarcity during the winter season. Therefore, tannins containing browse species may help farmers to use tannins as supplementary feed for livestock. But higher concentrations of tannins cause metabolic disorder which in results reduces the animal productivity. Therefore, it is need to investigate the effects of tannin supplementation in animal feeding; mitigation strategies to overcome the toxic effects of tannins on animal health. In this review paper, we have discussed safety and hazard associated with tannins in animal feeding.
Highlights
Tannins are group of plant polyphenols present in all vascular plants including leguminous plants, forages, flowers, fruits, grasses and leguminous trees (Blackmon et al, 2016)
Tannic based plants have both advantageous and injurious effects on animal health depending on the amount of feed intake, concentration, composition and time duration
Mitigation strategies may help to remove the toxic effects of tannins containing feedstuffs which might favorable for animal production
Summary
Tannins are group of plant polyphenols present in all vascular plants including leguminous plants, forages, flowers, fruits, grasses and leguminous trees (Blackmon et al, 2016). Tannins are generally classified into two groups: hydrolysable tannins (HT) and condensed tannins (CT) (Table 1) Tannins have both harmful and beneficial effects depending on their nature, concentration, animal species, animal health and feed composition (Figures 1a and 1b). Several studies have reported that tannin based forages have anti-bloat and anthelmintic characteristics which improve the quality of meat and milk products, fatty acids composition and ruminant antioxidant status (Blackmon et al, 2016). These tannins containing plants contribute to inhibit the enteric methane emission (Anantasook et al, 2016; Gunun et al, 2017). The purpose of this review was to evaluate the effects of tannin supplementation in animal feeding; mitigation strategies to overcome the toxic effects of tannins on animal health and the limitation of tannins supplementation in animal nutrition and its possible consequences on animals
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