Nitrogen additive with extruded urea with essential oils to control gastrointestinal worms in lambs.

Our objective was to evaluate the effect of a nitrogen additive with extruded urea with essential oils based on garlic and cinnamon on the resistance to gastrointestinal worms and on the performance of lambs in the finishing phase. Fourteen male sheep were used, with an average age of 18 months and an average initial body weight of 23.5 kg. The lambs were divided into two nutritional treatments: control and nitrogen additive. The control treatment was composed of a roughage: concentrate ratio of 60:40, with the roughage being whole plant corn silage and the concentrate being based on corn and soybean meal. The test treatment was prepared in the same manner as the control treatment, with the addition of a commercial nitrogen additive NFeed® (extruded urea plus essential oils derived from garlic-Allium sativum, and cinnamon-Cinnamomum sp). Each experimental group was allocated to its respective area, provided with stalls where collective feeders were located, and simultaneously had access to areas formed by Brachiaria brizantha cv. Marandu, which were previously contaminated by sheep with high FEC (> 1000). Fecal samples were collected directly from the rectal ampulla of each lamb, at 15-day intervals. The lambs were evaluated for productive performance and total diet consumption. In terms of FEC, there was a notable disparity between the treatments on day 60 of the experiment. The FEC results show that 88.57% of the lambs in the control group had a high count (> 1000), while 65.71% of the lambs in the nitrogen additive group had a high count (> 1000). The lambs in the control treatment showed a higher average daily gain (ADG) compared to the lambs in the nitrogen additive treatment, without any negative impact on total weight gain. Lambs fed a diet consisting of silage and concentrate based on corn and soybean meal, plus a nitrogen additive with essential oils derived from garlic and cinnamon showed a lower parasitic load compared to lambs that received only silage and concentrate based on corn and soybean meal in their diet. The nitrogen additive diet did not effectively improve the lambs' productive performance or the intake efficiency of the diet. Plant compounds derived from garlic and cinnamon have an anthelmintic effect, suggesting that these natural compounds associated with nitrogen additives (NFeed®) have the potential for phytotherapeutic use in managing gastrointestinal nematodes in small ruminants.