The Replacement Value of Corn Silage With Wild Pistachio (Pistacia Khinjuk) Leaf in the Diet of Sheep and Its Effect on Digestibility of Fiber and Protein

The aim of present experiment was to investigate the feeding value of wild pistachio leaf (khinjuk leaf, kl) for arabi sheep. the digestibility and fermentation of diets containing different amounts of khinjuk (0, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 and 30%) were measured. then, the effect of presence of kl in the diet and its tannin content on the digestibility of alfalfa hay (alfa), wheat straw (ws) and soybean meal (sbm) was studied by gas production (gp) technique. there was significant difference between the digestibility of dry matter (dm) and neutral detergent fiber (ndf) in diets containing kl compared with control (p < 0.05). by increasing the amount of kl in the diet, digestibility of dm and ndf was decreased; the most and least digestibility belonged to the control and diet containing 30% kl, respectively. the digestibility of dm and ndf, up to 10% replacement of corn silage (cs) with khinjuk, did not have any difference with the control diet. there were no significant differences in the potential (b) and rate (c) of gp of ws, and potential of gp of alfa between diets, but the rate of the gp of alfa significantly declined (p < 0.05). the gp potential and microbial biomass of sbm in control was more than diets containing kl. the amounts of pf, microbial biomass production and biomass production efficiency of ws (p > 0.05) and alfa (p < 0.05) in the diets containing kl were higher than those of the control. conversely, all of these indexes were greater for sbm in control diet, but only for biomass production efficiency the difference was significant (p < 0.05). overall, the results indicated that using kl in the diets of sheep, had no significant negative effect on digestion and fermentation of fiber and protein resources but microbial biomass production and its efficiency were improved .