MITIGATING THE EFFECT OF SHEEP RUMEN KERATINIZATION DEGREE ON THE FARM INCOME LOSS

Grazing is a main tool for biodiversity conservation, however, there is a risk of pasture abandonment due to the climate changes leading to an increasing summer aridity that negatively affect forage features; worsening in forage composition resulted in decline of sheep body status, mainly due to the rise of fiber content, which causes the increase of rumen keratinization degree [1]. During summer, the deterioration of the body condition of sheep is the main cause of the declining milk yield and quality; this can have serious impacts on farm household income, enhancing the risk of pasture abandonment with consequent environmental and territorial degradation. This work presents the food supplementation as an efficient way to contrast the rapid rumen keratinization in sheep fed on the pasture during the summer. A flock of 45 adult female sheep were conducted on pasture at the beginning of June 2016, where they were free to grazing until the moment of pasture maximum flowering. From this moment until the maximum pasture dryness the animals were divided in two groups: the control group (Cnt) fed only on the pasture, while the experimental group (Exp) was also supplemented with 600g/day/animal of corn and barley (1:1). Only animals destined to the slaughter house for human feeding were used. Samples of rumen ventral sac were removed from rumen visceral surface [1] of 5 subjects to evaluate the keratinization degree of rumen epithelial lining [2] at the beginning and at the end of the trial. Body Condition Score and milk production were monitored at the beginning at the middle and at the end of the but it slow down the growth of the rumen keratinization degree (Exp 32.86% vs Cnt 45.59%; P= 0.00123), allowing a better absorption of nourishing principles and then bringing to a significant increase of the milk production (P=0.0013 at the middle of the trial; P=0.03 at the end of the trial). The cost-benefit analysis (CBA) was applied to assess the economic impact of feed supplementation during the trial. Thus, the break-even point (BEP) expressed in liters of milk for 10 ewes was achieved both for the Cnt and Exp sample. Among the conventional measures of business performance, BEP defines the volume of sales at which revenues just equal its costs. The CBA, attempted also considering the newborn numerousness, indicated that food supplementation could mitigate the productive loss induced by summer aridity preserving the economic sustainability of sheep milk production, thus avoiding land abandonment.