Impacts of Pomegranate Peel Supplementation to Baladi Crossbred Heifers Rations on Nutrients Digestion, Growth Rate, Some Blood Parameters, Antioxidant Status and Economic Efficiency

This study was conducted to investigate the effects of dried pomegranate peel (DPP) supplementation on growth performance, feed intake, nutrient digestibility, nutritive value, blood parameters, feed conversion ratio (FCR), and economic efficiency in growing Baladi crossbred heifer rations.In total30heifers with an average live weight of 201.74 ± 4.05 kg at the start of the experiment were randomly divided into 3 groups (10 each one). The animals received their rations with different levels of (DPP) (0, 100, and 200 g/h/d in G1, G2, and G3, respectively).The results showed that the values of digestion coefficients and nutritive value were not significantly (P>0.05) affected, except that CP digestibility was significantly higher (P< 0.05) in G2 than in G1 and G3.The blood parameters of the experimental heifers were within the normal ranges for ALT, AST, cholesterol, triglyceride, urea, creatinine, albumin, and total protein without any significant variations (P> 0.05).Otherwise, total antioxidant capacity (TAC), phagocytic index, lymphocyte transformation and glutathione assay were significantly increased in G2 and G3 compared with G1(control).Final BW, total BW gain and ADG, were not considerably impacted by the treatments(P> 0.05). A positive effect on the economic feed efficiency was found, besides improving FCR and reducing feeding cost for 1 kg weight gain, it could be concluded that the addition of 100 and 200 g DPP/h/d might be a good strategy to improve the growth performance, immunity, antioxidative status, and profitability of livestock farms.