Effects of Dietary Addition of Ellagic Acid on Rumen Metabolism, Nutrient Apparent Digestibility, and Growth Performance in Kazakh Sheep

The rumen fluid of Kazakh sheep was collected in October 2022 in Xinjiang, China, and the rumen fluid samples were sequenced by 16srRNA.The objective of this study was to investigate the effects of dietary addition EA on rumen metabolism, apparent digestibility of nutrients, and growth performance in Kazakh sheep. The results showed that dietary EA could improve the daily weight gain of Kazakh sheep (p=0.094), increased the concentrations of acetic acid and propionic acid in the rumen (p<0.05), changed the abundance of rumen microbiota, increased the apparent digestibility (p<0.05) and feed conversion efficiency, increased the activities of T-AOC, SOD, CAT and GSH-PX (p<0.05), and decreased the concentration of MDA (p<0.05). Overall, Dietary Addition of 30 mg/kg BW (sheep / day) EA could improve the growth performance of Kazakh sheep and this may be attributed to the increse of rumen fermentation, nutrient digestibility and antioxidant capacity.