Effect of different Chinese herbal feed additives on fur quality and blood biochemical index of silver foxes

In order to explore the effects of Chinese herbal medicine feed additives on fur quality and blood biochemical indexes of silver foxes, 48 young silver foxes with similar body weight and half male and female were randomly divided into 3 groups with 16 foxes in each group. Group 1 was the control group, which was fed with basic diet. Group 2 and group 3 were fed basic diet with 1% Chinese herbal colibacillosis preventive agent and 1% Chinese herbal medicine immune enhancer, respectively. The experiment lasted for 40 d. At the end of the experimental period, the dry skin length, dry skin width, dry skin weight and needle hair length and villi length of buttocks, shoulders, back and abdomen of silver foxes were measured.And serum immunoglobulin A（IgA）, immunoglobulin G（IgG）, immunoglobulin M（IgM）, lysozyme（LZM）, total oxidation capacity（T-AOC）, glutathione peroxidase（GSH-Px）, superoxide dismutase（SOD）, total protein（TP）, albumin（ALB）, glutamic oxaloacetic transaminase（AST）, glutamic pyruvic transaminase（ALT）, urea nitrogen（BUN）, triglyceride（TG）, Total cholesterol（T-CHO）, calcium（Ca）, phosphorus（P） and alkaline phosphatase（AKP） levels.The results showed that the dry skin length, dry skin width and dry skin weight of the two experimental groups were higher than those of the control group（P＞0.05）. Hair length, except that the abdominal villus length of group 3 was slightly lower than that of the control group, the needle hair length and villus length of the test groups were higher than those of the control group, and some of the differences were significant（P＜0.05）. The fur quality indexes of the group 3 of Chinese herbal medicine were the best. The results of blood biochemical index analysis showed that the two kinds of Chinese herbal medicine additives were superior to the control group in immunity, antioxidation, protein metabolism, lipid metabolism, calcium and phosphorus metabolism and so on. Group 3 was significantly different from the control group on indicators such as IgA, IgM, TP, ALB, T-CHO and AKP（P＜0.05）. The results indicated that the two Chinese herbal feed additives could not only improve fur quality and the immune and antioxidant capacity of silver fox, but also improve the absorption and metabolism of protein, fat, calcium and phosphorus.Among them, the effect of 1% Chinese herbal medicine immune enhancer was the best.