Acta Veterinaria et Zootechnica Sinica ›› 2023, Vol. 54 ›› Issue (8): 3393-3405.doi: 10.11843/j.issn.0366-6964.2023.08.024

• ANIMAL NUTRITION AND FEEDS • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Effects of Different Exercise Amounts on Rumen Microflora Diversity of Tan Sheep

MA Youji1*, CHEN Pengfei1, MA Qing2, WU Yi1   

  1. 1. College of Animal Science and Technology, Gansu Agricultural University, Lanzhou 730070, China;
    2. Institute of Animal Science, Ningxia Academy of Agriculture and Forestry Sciences, Yinchuan 750002, China
  • Received:2022-12-05 Online:2023-08-23 Published:2023-08-22

Abstract: This experiment aimed to explore the effects of different exercise amounts on rumen microflora of Tan sheep. Sixty Tan sheep weaned lambs (body weight (20±0.5) kg) with good body condition were randomly divided into three groups:1) Control group (NC group), whole barn feeding; 2) 5 kilometers group (5 km group), daily exercise along the ecological pasture fence 5 km; 3) 10 kilometers group (10 km group), daily exercise along the ecological pasture fence 10 km. The are 5 replicates per group and 4 sheep in each replicate. The experiment lasted for 130 days, including 10 days of pre-experiment and 120 days of formal experiment. At the end of the experiment, rumen contents were collected for metagenomic sequencing to determine the diversity of rumen microflora. Results were showed as follows:1) The Shannon, Simpson and Chao1 indexes of 5 km and 10 km groups were higher than those in NC group (P>0.05); 2) Taxonomic annotation showed that Bacteroidetes and Firmicutes accounted for the highest proportion, whereas no significant differences in relative abundance of the two bacteria phyla were observed among the experimental groups and the NC group (P>0.05). The relative abundance of Ruminococcus and Lactobacillus were significantly higher in the experimental groups than those in the NC group (P<0.05). In summary, under the conditions of this experiment, increasing the amount of exercise can increase the abundance and diversity of rumen microorganisms of Tan sheep, change the relative abundance of some bacteria, but have no significant impact on the uniformity of rumen microorganisms.

Key words: Tan sheep, exercise, metagenomics, rumen, microflora

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