The effect of oil extracted from borago officinalis L. whole plant at flowering stage on some ruminal fermentation parameters of sheep

• Main Authors: Mohsen Kazemi, Yaser Eskandari Torbaghan
• Format: Article
• Language: fas
• Published: Islamic Azad University, Tabriz Branch 2019-11-01
• Series: Āsīb/shināsī-i Darmāngāhī-i Dāmpizishkī
• Subjects: vegetable oil; borago officinalis l; ruminal fermentation; sheep
• Online Access: http://jvcp.iaut.ac.ir/article_669193_3740ad812eb40a8dd7653f0b6c647845.pdf

<em>Borago officinalis</em> L. is a plant of <em>Boraginaceae</em> family, which is commonly used for medicinal purposes. The oil of this plant is rich in essential compounds, which is likely to cause changes in the ruminal fermentation pattern. Hence, this study was carried out with the aim of extracting the oil of <em>borago officinalis</em> L. after flowering by Soxhlet apparatusand investigating its effect (at four different levels of 0, 0.15, 0.30 and 0.45 mg/ml) on some ruminal fermentation parameters in an <em>in vitro</em> batch culture. The findings indicated that after oil addition, there was no change in gas production parameters (except for constant rate of gas production), microbial mass yield, efficiency of microbial mass synthesis, partitioning factor and protozoal population of the culture medium, but pH was significantly (linear, <em>p</em>=0.04) decreased compared to the control group, and total volatile fatty acids increased (linear, <em>p</em>=0.0006) subsequently. Also, methane yield decreased significantly (linear, <em>p</em>=0.0005) when the level of oil increased in the medium, but in contrast, the degradability of dry matter, organic matter and neutral detergent fiber increased. The overall results showed that the oil extracted from <em>Borago officinalis</em> L. can modify the ruminal fermentation pattern responsible for animal performance and reduce the emission of methane gas. Also, it seems that 0.45 mg/ml of oil produces the maximum effect on the fermentation pattern.