Feed intake, digestibility, rumen fermentation and growth performance of camels fed diets supplemented with a yeast culture or zinc bacitracin

Twelve Maghraby camel calves (185.2 ± 0.7 kg body weight, BW) were utilized in a – 14 weeks – completely randomized design experiment to evaluate the effects of feeding a probiotic yeast culture (YC; Diamond V® “XP” YC containing Saccharomyces cerevisiae) or zinc bacitracin (ZnB) on feed intake, growth performance, nutrient digestibility, N utilization, rumen fermentation, and water balance. Treatments were: (1) a basal diet (control) consisted of peanut hay (400 g/kg) and concentrates (600 g/kg) on dry matter (DM) basis. (2) The basal diet supplemented with 5 g/kg (DM basis) of an YC. (3) The basal diet supplemented with 2 g/kg (DM basis) of ZnB. Diets were offered individually at 0.03 of BW per day. Feed intake (DM) was not affected by treatments. Total weight gain for YC supplemented group was higher (P<0.05), while average daily gain (ADG), final body weight and feed (DM) conversion tended to be better (0.05