الفهرس 
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Abstract
The experiment was conducted at the Animal Experimental Farm, Animal Production Department, Faculty of Agriculture, Assiut University, Assiut, Egypt.
The aim of this study was to determine body performance, some blood metabolites and blood counts in rams drenched three times weekly for three months with:
1- Tab water (Control)
2- Date palm pollen (DPP) 30 g suspended in tap water or,
3- Bee pollen (BP) 30 g suspended in tap water or,
4- Artificial bee bread (BB) 30 g suspended in tap water.
Twenty Saidi rams of about 36 kg body weight with 9 months’ age were used in this experiment. Animals were assigned randomly to four treatment groups (C, DPP, BP and BB) with an average body weight, 35.00, 36.24, 36.74 and 35.68 kg, respectively. To assess the effect of the phytogenic growth promoters DPP, BP and BB on growth performance and physiological, hematological and biochemical parameters of rams. Animals were fed roughage and concentrate diet ad libitum during the experimental period. The experimental period lasted for 3 months. Animals were weighed at the beginning of the experiment in the morning before feeding and biweekly thereafter to determine body weight. Feed consumption was determined, live weight gain and feed conversion (kg feed/kg gain) were calculated. At the end of experimental period of 90 day, the final body weight in control and DPP, BP and BB treated groups was 44.38, 52.75, 53.13, and 58.38 kg, respectively. Two blood samples (about 10 ml of each sample) were obtained from all experimental animals and resumed by Jugular venipuncture and transferred to the first vial that containing disodium salt of ethylene diamine tetra-acetic acid (EDTA) as an anticoagulant for haematological parameters. where the second vial without anticoagulant was centrifuged to obtain serum by separation at 3000 r.p.m. for 15 minutes. Serum was transferred into clean dry glass vials and stored at -20 °C until subsequent analyses.
The obtained results are summarized in the following:
1-Growth performance
1.1 Body weight (BW): The three treatments with the growth promoters DPP, BP and BB showed highly significant increase in BW (P<0.05) than the control while the treatment with BB highly significantly (P<0.01) exceeded the other two treatments DPP and BP. No significant differences were detected between the two growth promoters DPP and BP (41.38, 47.50, 46.71, and 51.04 kg for the control, DPP, BP and BB treatments, respectively).
1.2 Daily weight gain: Average daily gain of rams treated with DPP, BP and BB was significantly (P< 0.05) higher than the control (103.11, 182.33±, 179.84, and 259.11 g/day for the control, DPP, BP and BB treatments, respectively). The treatment with BB highly significantly exceeded the other two treatments.
1.3 Feed intake:
1.3.1 Roughage feed intake Insignificantly differed between the four treatments.
1.3.2 DPP, BP and BB treated rams had higher (P< 0.05) concentrate feed intake than the control.
1.3.3 DPP, BP and BB treated rams had higher (P< 0.05) total feed intake than the control.
1.3.4 Feed conversion ofDPP, BP and BB treated rams were significantly lower (improved) than the control. (10.65, 7.20, 6.57 and 5.47 for control, DPP, BP and BB respectively). The BB treated rams group showed the lowest feed conservation rate (5.47).
2- Effect of the growth promoters DPP, BP and BB on some
blood metabolites:
2.1. Serum total protein, albumin, total globulins and
albumin/globulin ratio.
2.1.1 Serum total protein of the DPP, BP and BB treated rams groups significantly (P< 0.005) excided the control group (58.00, 64.53, 62.13 and 70.27 g/L for control, DPP, BP and BB, respectively). The BB treated group showed significant (P< 0.005) increase than the DPP and BP treated groups.
2.1.2 Serum total albumin was higher (P< 0.05) of DPP and BP treatments and significantly higher (P< 0.05) of BB treatment than the control.
2.1.3 The three treatments with DPP, BP and BB had triggered highly significant (P< 0.05) increase in serum total globulin concentration but the parameter was not statistically different from each other.
2.1.4 Insignificant differences had been detected between the four treatments in albumin/ globulin ratio (A/G).
2.2. Serum glucose:
Rams supplemented with DPP, BP and BB exhibited highly significant(P<0.05) increment in glucose concentration compared to the control rams (3.14, 4.64, 4.43 and 7.78 mmol/L for control, DPP, BP and BB, respectively).
2.3. Serum total cholesterol:
Rams supplemented with DPP, BP and BB exhibited highly significant(P<0.05) decrease in decrease in serum cholesterol compared to the control rams (2.89, 2.61, 2.62 and 2.50 mmol/L for control, DPP, BP and BB, respectively).
2.4. Serum triglycerides:
Rams supplemented with DPP, BP and BB exhibited highly significant(P<0.05) decrease in decrease in serum triglycerides compared to the control rams (0.98, 0.82, 0.82 and 0.83 mmol/L for control, DPP, BP and BB, respectively).
2.5. Serum creatinine and urea nitrogen concentration:
2.5.1 No statically different values of creatinine were detected between the control and treated groups.
2.5.2 Urea nitrogen concentration, rams received DPP, BP or BB showed highly significant (P< 0.05) decrease in urea nitrogen concentra