Vet World   Vol.13   March-2020  Article-28

In vitro evaluation of graded level of Silkworm pupae (Bombyx mori) oil on methane production, fermentation characteristics, and protozoal populations

Background and Aim: The present study was undertaken to evaluate the effect of variable levels of silkworm pupae oil and roughage: concentrate ratio on in vitro methane production, fermentation characteristics, and rumen protozoa population.

Materials and Methods: In vitro gas production study (24 h) was performed with graded levels of silkworm pupae oil, namely, 0.5, 1, 2, 4, and 5% of the basal diet and four variable dietary regimes consisting roughage and concentrate in different proportions (70:30, 60:40, 50:50, and 40:60). At the end of incubation, gas samples were analyzed for methane, while fermented rumen liquor was used for protozoa enumeration. A separate set of incubations was carried out for the determination of in vitro dry matter digestibility.

Results: Results from the in vitro studies revealed no adverse impact of the silkworm pupae oil supplementation up to 2% level on total gas production. However, supplementation beyond 2% has shown a reduction in total gas production. Incubation with variable levels (0.5-5%) of silkworm pupae oil with different dietary regimes indicated negligible (3-5%) to a substantial reduction (25-30%) on methane production. A graded decrement in methane production was recorded with increasing levels of silkworm pupae oil. Similarly, the protozoal populations were decreased from 10 to 51.5% with graded levels of silkworm pupae oil in different dietary regimes as studies did not reveal any significant (p>0.05) variation between 2 and 4% of oil supplementation.

Conclusion: The silkworm pupae oil supplementation at 2% level decreases methane production by 12-15% without any adverse impact on feed fermentation. Oil supplementation may have a more pronounced effect on methane reduction if added to high roughage diet at in vitro conditions. However, in vivo, studies in ruminants are warranted to confirm the methane reduction with silkworm pupae oil supplementation. Keywords: dry matter digestibility, methane production, protozoa, silkworm pupae oil.

Keywords: dry matter digestibility, methane production, protozoa, silkworm pupae oil.

How to cite this article: Thirumalaisamy G, Malik PK, Kolte AP, Bhatta R (2020) In vitro evaluation of graded level of Silkworm pupae (Bombyx mori) oil on methane production, fermentation characteristics, and protozoal populations, Veterinary World, 13(3): 586-592.

Received: 04-09-2019  Accepted: 10-02-2020     Published online: 28-03-2020

Corresponding author: G. Thirumalaisamy   E-mail: nutritionthirumalai@gmail.com

DOI: 10.14202/vetworld.2020.586-592

Copyright: Thirumalaisamy, et al. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http:// creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.