Leverage of Dietary Spirulina on Physiological Profiles of Black Iraqi Goats

Abstract

There is an increasing demand for goat meat worldwide for it is lean and nutritious. So, this calls for understanding the factors that affect the quality of goat meat to guarantee its acceptability on the part of the consumer. The current study was conducted at many private farms in Baquba city from December 2022 until February 2023 to assess the impacts of Spirulina supplement on several physiological and biochemical traits in Black Iraqi kids. A total of 28 male kids aged 4-5 months, with body weight 18.35 to 22.76 kg, were randomly assigned to four nutritional groups (each group involved 7 animals). The first group was fed concentrate diet 3% of the body weight every day and was deemed to be the control group. The second group was daily fed concentrate diet 3% of the body weight in addition to Spirulina (2gm/head). The third group was daily fed concentrate diet 3% of body weight which contains Spirulina (5gm/head) while the fourth group was daily fed concentrate diet 3% of the body weight which also contains Spirulina (10gm/head). Alfalfa hay was provided (0.5kg/head) daily and grazing was allowed for all animals as one group for 2hr daily. There were no restrictions regarding water; animals were free to take water at any point. The result of this study showed significant reduction (P< 0.05) of serum total lipids in growing kids of the groups (2, 3 and 4) at the end of the experiment. Also, the kids were fed 10 grams of Spirulina supplement had the lowest serum cholesterol concentration as compared to the control and other groups. kids which were fed diets with Spirulina showed significantly (P<0.05) higher HDL-C concentrations in blood serum. Treatment with 5g of Spirulina (G3) showed significantly (P<0.05) higher levels of HDL compared to the second group and the control group. In conclusion, it has been revealed that Spirulina improves the biochemical parameters of blood and enhances the functioning of some important organs due to an increase in total serum protein, albumin, and globulin. Also, Spirulina caused a reduction in blood urea, cholesterol, triglyceride, LDL, ALT, AST and ALP enzymes concentration while there was increase in HDL.