The Influence Of Priming Two Cucumber Cultivar Seeds

J. Duhok Univ. Vol.13, No.1, (Agri. And Vet. Sciences) Pp 49-54, 2010
EFFECT OF DIET SUPPLEMENTED WITH ASCORBIC ACID ON:
1.GROWTH PERFORMANCE AND CARCASS
TRAITS OF MERIZ GOAT *
JALAL ELIYA ALKASS, MWAFQ SULIAMAN BARWARY and ARAZ OMER BAMERNY
Dept. of Animal Production, College of Agriculture, University of Duhok, Kurdistan Region-Iraq
(Received: April 1, 2010; Accepted for publication: August 29, 2010)
ABSTRACT
The study was conducted at the Animal Farm, Department of Animal Production, College of Agriculture,
University of Duhok during the period from 14 th June to 14 th September 2009, where a total of twenty weaned (3-4
month old) male Meriz kids with an average live body weight of 13.48 ± 0.62 kg were divided randomly into 4 equal
treatment groups and received 0,750, 1000 and 1250 mg/kg diet of vitamin C for duration of 90 days.
Results revealed that the overall mean of daily weight gain was 0.071 ± 0.007 kg. Meriz kids received 750 mg/kg of
vitamin C in diet had numerically higher daily gain and feed efficiency and lower water consumption compared to
other groups. Although results indicated that all carcass characteristics were not affected significantly by treatment,
however a slight improvement was observed in final weight, hot carcass weight and fat thickness for kids fed 750
mg/kg diet vitamin C.
KEY WORDS: Ascorbic acid, Growth, Carcass, Meriz.
I
INTRODUCTION
n tropical and sub-tropical countries,
climatic heat is the major constraint affect
animal productivity. It was indicated that heat
stress causes a decrease in live body weight and
gain (Kamal et al., 1989; Maria et al., 2006), a
decrease in food intake, an increase in water
consumption (Walker and Dziemian 1950).
Vitamin C supplementation is not commonly
practiced in adult livestock nutrition (McDowell,
2000). Nevertheless, it has been reported that the
concentration of ascorbic acid in plasma is
decreased by heat stress in calves (Cummins and
Brunner, 1991). Also, a study on Merino sheep,
Haliloğlu and Serpek (2000) found that ascorbic
acid affects positively the fertility and body
weight of pregnant sheep and new – born lambs.
More recently, working with weaned male lambs
Abd El-Monem et al (2008) found that final live
body weight, daily body gain, feed intake and
feed conversion were significantly (p