The effect of dietary forages in tetanus hyper immunized equine serum production

Abstract

The determination of local forage in meeting the nutritional requirement of horses and its effect on the antibody titer production is necessary to be conducted. The aim of the study was to determine the effect of dietary forage to antibody titer production of Anti-Tetanus Serum. All procedures performed in this study were approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (Ethical Approval No: 01/IACUC-BF/VI/20). A total of 12 Sandalwood horses aged 3-6 years with body weight ranged at 268.4 - 365.8 kg were used in this study. Horses were randomly assigned into four dietary treatment groups for ten weeks (100% Elephant grass; 100% Mott elephant grass; 67% Elephant grass: 33% Kikuyu grass; and 67% Mott elephant grass: 33% Kikuyu grass) which allowed 7.24; 11.45; 11.12; 12.62% crude protein respectively. The titer measurement was carried out once a week during the production period. The data obtained was analyzed using correlation analysis. The results showed that 100% Mott elephant grass group produced the highest titer but the correlation between crude protein levels in the diets and titer were weak (0.44). Thus, it can be concluded that the high protein forage given has no potential to increase the serum antibody titer.