Effect of feeding mixture of garlic bulb and peppermint oil on methane emission, rumen fermentation and microbial profile in buffaloes

Abstract

Feeding of a mixture of two plant products (25 g garlic bulb mixed with 1ml peppermint oil; GP) was tested for its effect on methane production, rumen fermentation and microbial profile in 4 rumen fistulated buffaloes given a ration containing 50% wheat straw and 50% concentrate mixture in 2x2 switch over design. The animals of one group served as control, and the diet of animals of other group (GP) was supplemented with GP @ 2.5% of the DM intake. The supplementation of GP did not show any affect on dry matter intake, digestibility of dry matter (DM), organic matter (OM), neutral detergent fibre (NDF), acid detergent fibre (ADF) and ether extract (EE). The rumen pH, concentration of ammonia nitrogen, lactic acid and activities of carboxymethylcellulase and xylanase were also similar in both the groups. The population density of total bacteria, fungi, Fibrobacter succinogenes and methanogens and protozoa was also similar in both the groups. The inclusion of GP in the diet resulted in 13.0% reduction in methane production (l/day), but when expressed as l/kg DMI the inhibition was 7% as compared to the control animals. The results indicated that the use of mixture of garlic bulb as feed additive can be explored to mitigate methane production in buffaloes.