ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Vet. Sci.
Sec. Animal Nutrition and Metabolism
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fvets.2025.1616612
This article is part of the Research TopicInnovative Nutritional Technologies for Sustainable Ruminant FarmingView all 10 articles
Effects of dietary Lycium ruthenicum (black goji berry) branches supplementation on growth performance, meat quality, and muscle amino acid and fatty acid composition in sheep
Provisionally accepted
- Feed Research Institute；Xinjiang Key Laboratory of Herbivorous Livestock Feed Biotechnology, Xinjiang Academy of Animal Science, Ürümqi, Xinjiang Uyghur Region, China
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The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of a preparation of black goji berry branches (Lycium ruthenicum) on growth performance, meat quality, amino acid and fatty acid content of sheep. The experiment was a one-way completely randomized trial, in which 40 male sheep of the F1 generation of Dupo × Lake sheep crosses at four months of age were randomly divided into four groups of ten lambs each.Each group was fed an isoenergetic and isonitrogenous total mixed pellet ration containing 0% (CON), 10% (H1), 20% (H2) and 30% (H3) of Lycium ruthenicum branches. The experimental period included a pre-test adaptation of 10 d and an experimental test period of 60 d. The Luminosity of each experimental group was highly significantly higher than that of the CON (P<0.01). The values for Redness of the H2 and H3 groups were significantly higher than that of the CON (P<0.05).The gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) concentration in the longest back muscle first increased and then decreased (P<0.01), and the H2 group was extremely significantly higher than the CON and the other experimental groups. The H1 and H2 groups were significantly lower than the control group, decreasing by 6.87% and 7.07%, respectively (P<0.05). The c20:0, c20:1 content showed a linear increase with increasing addition of Lycium ruthenicum,but the difference was not significant (P>0.05).Thus, dietary feed supplementation with 20% of dried, ground Lycium ruthenicum branches can improve sheep meat quality and culture benefit.
Keywords: Lycium barbarum(black goji berry), meat quality, Amino Acids, fatty acid composition, Sheep
Received: 23 Apr 2025; Accepted: 16 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Ma, Yang, Hou, Li, Duan and GUO. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Tongjun GUO, Feed Research Institute；Xinjiang Key Laboratory of Herbivorous Livestock Feed Biotechnology, Xinjiang Academy of Animal Science, Ürümqi, Xinjiang Uyghur Region, China
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