Effects of Different Sources of Selenium on Growth, Hematological and Rumen Parameters in finishing Mahraban Lambs

This trial was conducted to evaluate the effects of different sources of selenium supplements on growth performance, hematological and rumen metabolites in finishing Mehraban lambs for 70 days. The trial experiment consisted of 24 male lambs, 4-5 months of age and 35.8±2.7 kg average in weight randomly allotted to 4 treatments. Treatments were: 1) Control diet (diet without selenium supplementation, containing 0.06 mg/kg of selenium); 2) Control diet + 0.2 mg/kg Se as selenium yeast (organic selenium); 3) Control diet + 0.2 mg/kg Se as sodium selenite and 4) Control diet + 0.4 mg/kg Se as sodium selenite. During the course of the experiment lambs were weighed on first day and on days 14, 28, 42, 56 and 70 to determine body weight change. Blood samples were taken on days 0, 35 and 70 and rumen samples were taken on days 35 and 70. Feed was administered daily and orts recorded to get net feed intak. Supplementations of organic and inorganic selenium to diet did not have significant effect on lambs growth performance, hematological parameters, alkaline phosphatase, aspartate aminotransferase and creatine phospho kinase (P<0.05), while increased blood GPX activity compared to control group (P<0.05). Also, supplementation of 0.2 mg/kg organic selenium increased total volatile fatty acids and decreased ammonia concentrations in rumen, compared with non supplemented group (P<0.05). In overall, it may be concluded that organic supplement of selenium improves rumen parameters of growing Mehraban lambs.1