Meat Quality and Lipid Oxidation of Infraspinatus Muscle and Blood Plasma of Goats under Dietary Supplementation of Herbal Antioxidants

Effects of feeding different levels of dried orange pulp and recycled poultry bedding on the performance of fattening lambs

The effects of dietary feeding different levels of recycled poultry bedding (RPB) and dried orange pulp (DOP) on the performance of fattening Shal lambs (initial BW of 28 ± 2.2 kg) were assessed using a factorial experiment (2 × 3) with a completely randomized design. Six diets, containing different levels of RPB (0 or 160 g/kg of DM) and DOP (0, 110, or 220 g/kg of DM), were randomly assigned to 6 groups of 6 lambs each for a 74-d period (14 d for adaptation and 60 d for data collection). Diets were offered as total mixed ration to ensure 10% of orts. Feed intake, growth, diet digestibility, microbial nitrogen (N) synthesis (MNS), N retention, rumen fermentation parameters, and blood metabolites were determined. Data were analyzed using the PROC MIXED of SAS. Increasing RPB and DOP levels in the diet of the lambs improved ( < 0.05) DMI, ADG, and G:F. Diet digestibility was not affected by dietary feeding of RPB ( > 0.05), but increased as DOP level increased in the diet ( < 0.05). Feeding RPB and DOP had no effects ( > 0.05) on the ruminal pH. The ruminal total VFA concentration, molar proportion of acetic acid, and acetate-to-propionate ratio increased ( < 0.05) with the increasing dietary levels of RPB and DOP, while ammonia N concentration, propionic acid proportion, total protozoa count, and subfamily number decreased ( < 0.05). Including RPB and DOP in diet enhanced ( < 0.05) MNS and N retention. Feeding RPB-containing diets caused ( < 0.05) an increase of plasma glucose concentration and decreases ( < 0.05) of cholesterol and urea N. As the dietary level of DOP increased, the plasma concentrations of glucose, triglycerides, and urea N reduced ( < 0.05). The plasma antioxidant power was not affected ( > 0.05) by feeding RPB, but increased ( < 0.05) with increasing DOP level in diet. The animal performance reached its greatest value with simultaneous feeding of 160 g of RPB and 220 g of DOP per kg of diet DM. It has been concluded that the partial dietary substitution of RPB (instead of soybean meal, wheat bran, and sugar beet pulp) or/and DOP (instead of barley grain and corn grain) in fattening Shal lambs had positive effects on feed intake, diet digestibility, ruminal microbial N, growth, and N retention. Synchronized feeding of the great levels of RPB (as an N source) and DOP (as an energy source) increased utilization efficiency of these byproducts in the fattening lambs.

Antioxidant effects of liquorice (Glycyrrhiza uralensis) extract during aging of longissimus thoracis muscle in Tan sheep

The study was conducted to investigate the potential of liquorice extract (LE) from Glycyrrhiza uralensis as a dietary supplement for sheep to improve antioxidant capacity of meat. Fifty Tan sheep were randomly allocated to five groups with LE supplementation at levels of 0, 1000, 2000, 3000 and 4000 mg/kg feed. After 120 days, the longissimus thoracis muscle was sampled and conditioned for 0, 2, 4, 6 and 8 days at 4 °C. The results revealed that LE scavenged free radical in a dose-response manner in vitro. Supplementation with LE in animal diet increased (P<0.05) antioxidant content and radical scavenging activity while it decreased (P<0.05) reactive oxygen species (ROS) and thiobarbituric acid reactive substance (TBARS) levels of meat. Dietary LE supplementation can improve antioxidant capacity of meat, and the optimum dosage range of LE supplementation appeared to be 3000 to 4000 mg/kg feed.

Effect of supplementation with antioxidants on the quality of bovine milk and meat production

From a clinical point of view, oxidative stress (OS) is considered the primary cause of numerous metabolic processes in transition cow. Thus, the addition of antioxidants has been considered a palliative or preventive treatment. But beyond the clinical perspective, antioxidant supplementation provides an added value to the product obtained being either milk or meat. This paper reviews the beneficial aspects that provide antioxidant supplementation on quality of both products and that fit into the new concept that the consumer has a functional and healthy food. Our approach is from a veterinary standpoint, by reviewing the studies conducted to date and the new perspectives that are interesting and need to be studied in the following years. One of the highlights is that sustainable farming, one in which production is combined with animal health, also impacts positively on the quality of the final products, with beneficial antioxidant properties to human health.

Effect of tea catechins on regulation of antioxidant enzyme expression in H2O2-induced skeletal muscle cells of goat in vitro

Skeletal muscle cells (SMCs) of goats were stress induced with 1 mM H(2)O(2) in the absence or presence of 0.5, 5, and 50 μg/mL tea catechins (TCs) incubation. Cells were harvested at 48 h postincubation with TCs to investigate the effects of TCs on cell proliferation, cell membrane integrity, antioxidant enzyme activities, and antioxidant enzyme genes and protein expression levels. Results showed that H(2)O(2) induction inhibited cell proliferation with or without TC incubation; moreover, the inhibition effect was enhanced in the presence of TCs (P < 0.001). H(2)O(2)-induced stress increased the lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) activity in the absence or presence of TC incubation, but concentrations of TCs, less than 5 μg/mL, showed protective functions against LDH leakage than in other H(2)O(2)-induced treatments. The catalase (CAT) activity increased when SMCs were stress induced with H(2)O(2) in the absence or presence of TC incubation (P < 0.001). H(2)O(2)-induced stress decreased CuZn superoxide dismutase (CuZn-SOD) and glutathione peroxidase (GPx) activities, whereas this effect was prevented by incubation with TCs in a concentration-dependent manner. H(2)O(2)-induced stress with or without TC incubation had significant effects on mRNA and protein expression levels of CAT, CuZn-SOD, and GPx (P < 0.001). CAT and CuZn-SOD mRNA expression levels were increased by different concentrations of TC incubation, and this tendency was basically consistent with corresponding protein expression levels. The GPx mRNA expression level increased with a low concentration of TCs but decreased with concentrations greater than 5 μg/mL of TCs, whereas GPx protein expression in all TC-incubated groups was lower than in the control treatment. The current findings imply that TCs had an inhibitory effect on cell proliferation and enhanced damage to the cell membrane integrity, but TCs affected antioxidant status in SMCs by modulating antioxidant enzyme activities at mRNA and protein expression levels.