Effects of Dietary Stevioside Supplementation on Feed Intake, Digestion, Ruminal Fermentation, and Blood Metabolites of Goats

Abstract

The objective of this study was to evaluate the effects of dietary inclusion of tevioside on feed intake, feeding behavior, nutrient digestion, rumen fermentation, and serum biochemical parameters in goats. Nine male Xiangdong black goats (21.8 ± 1.5 kg of body weight) were used in a replicated 3 × 3 Latin square. All goats were fed a basal diet including concentrate and forage (chopped rice traw). The three treatments were 0, 400, or 800 mg stevioside per kg chopped rice traw on a dry matter (DM) basis. Dry matter intake of forage and total diet linearly increased (p = 0.03 and p = 0.04) with increasing stevioside in the diet. There was no effect (p > 0.05) of stevioside inclusion in the diets on eating time, rumination time, or total mastication time for the goats. Total volatile fatty acid (VFA) concentration in the rumen responded quadratically (p < 0.01), decreasing from 0 to 400 mg/kg stevioside inclusion and increasing thereafter. The inclusion of steviosid in the diets promoted a quadratic increase in the apparent total tract digestibilities of neutral detergent fiber (NDF) (p = 0.02) and acid detergent fiber (ADF) (p = 0.01). Based on the results of this experiment, it could be concluded that supplementing goat diets with stevioside at 400 mg/kg to 800 mg/kg forage (about 270 to 541 mg/kg diet) resulted in increased dry intake of forage and total diet, suggesting that stevioside has positive potential as a feed additive to improve feed intake.

Sensory Attributes, Microbial Activity, Fatty Acid Composition and Meat Quality Traits of Hanwoo Cattle Fed a Diet Supplemented with Stevioside and Organic Selenium

“…In contrast, stevioside derivatives can stimulate the taste receptors (TASIR2/TASIR3) [ 39 , 40 ] and K + channels in pancreatic β-cells [ 41 ], which can increase the stimulation of appetite and voluntary FI. Similar to the present findings, Han et al 2019 [ 42 ] reported a linear increase in FI in goats given diets supplemented with 270 and 541 mg/kg stevioside. In contrast, Cho et al [ 43 ] reported that the dietary intake of Hanwoo steers is not influenced by the inclusion of 65 mg/kg stevioside as an essential oil to the feed with 0.1% of diet supplemented rate.…”

Effects of dietary sweeteners supplementation on growth performance, serum biochemicals, and jejunal physiological functions of broiler chickens

“…Sweet taste is also correlated with feed intake. A large number of studies have shown that dietary supplementation with sweeteners could promote the feed intake and thereby improve growth performance in livestock, including piglets ( Sterk et al., 2008 , Zhang et al., 2019 ), cattle ( McMeniman et al., 2006 ), and goat ( Han et al., 2019 ). Nevertheless, data are lacking about the impact of dietary supplementation with sweeteners on the feed intake and body weight ( BW ) gain of broiler chickens.…”

Dietary stevioside supplementation increases feed intake by altering the hypothalamic transcriptome profile and gut microbiota in broiler chickens

“…It has been shown that supplementation with steviol glycoside could increase the feed intake of guinea pigs 21 . Dietary STE supplementation is able to increase the palatability of rice straw and thereby promotes the feed intake of goats 22 . Nevertheless, owing to the lack of taste receptor family 1 member 2, chickens are insensitive to sweet substances 3 .…”