Research Article Reclamation of Astragalus By-Product through Dietary Inclusion in Ruminant Diets: Effects on Growth Performance, Nutrient Digestibility, Rumen Fermentation, Blood Biochemical Parameters, and Humoral Immune Response in Sheep Abedin Abdallah , 1 Pei Zhang, 1 Abdul-Halim Abubakari, 2 Evera Elemba, 3 Qingzhen Zhong , 1 and Zewei Sun 1 1 Key Laboratory of Animal Nutrition and Feed Science, Key Laboratory of Animal Production, Product Quality and Security, College of Animal Science and Technology, Jilin Agricultural University, Changchun, China 2 Faculty of Agriculture, University for Development Studies, Tamale, Ghana 3 College of Food Science and Engineering, Jilin Agricultural University, Changchun, Jilin 130118, China Correspondence should be addressed to Qingzhen Zhong; sunzewei@jlau.edu.cn and Zewei Sun; Zhong6667745@163.com Received 29 March 2019; Accepted 1 August 2019; Published 3 September 2019 Academic Editor: Cheorl-Ho Kim Copyright © 2019 Abedin Abdallah et al. is is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. is study was conducted to investigate the effects of Astragalus by-product (ABP) through dietary supplementation at different levels on performance, nutrient digestibility, rumen fermentation, blood metabolites, and immune response in sheep. Twenty- four Doper × Small Tail Han ewes (6-7months of age; 29.07 ± 2.28 kg initial body weight) were randomly assigned to one of three treatments for a 47d feeding period. Treatments consisted of the sheep diet supplemented with 0% ABP-control, 10% ABP, or 15% ABP of the diet (dry matter basis). Blood samples were collected on days 0, 15, 30, and 45 of the feeding period. APB sup- plementation did not affect growth performance and apparent digestibility of organic matter, crude protein, and acid detergent fibre (P > 0.05). However, ether extract digestibility was decreased in the 10% ABP group and increased in the 15% ABP group (P < 0.001), and both 10% ABP and 15% ABP decreased the neutral detergent fibre digestibility (P � 0.005). Feeding ABP increased rumen pH (P < 0.001) and ammonia N (P < 0.001) and decreased concentrations of acetate (P � 0.007) and propionate (P � 0.001) which resultantly increased the acetate-to-propionate ratio (P < 0.001) in ruminal fluid. ere were no interaction effects between treatment and sampling time for plasma metabolites and immunity (P > 0.05). However, inclusion of dietary 10% ABP decreased concentrations of plasma cholesterol (P � 0.043). Also, plasma concentrations of low-density lipoprotein de- creased on days 30 and 45 (P � 0.017) of the feeding period. Metabolite concentrations of total protein, albumin, globulin, blood urea N, glucose, triglyceride, and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol and humoral immune indicators were not affected (P > 0.05) by dietary ABP supplementation. e results suggest that ABP could be reclaimed through dietary inclusion in animal feed since it had beneficial effects on rumen fermentation patterns and lipid metabolism and had no adverse effects on per- formance and humoral immunity in sheep. 1. Introduction Astragalus membranaceus, also known as Huangqi in Chinese and Radix Astragali in Latin, is a widely used immunomodulating herb mainly in traditional Chinese medicine. e root of A. membranaceus contains over 100 bioactive compounds prominent among which include polysaccharides, flavonoids, amino acids, and saponins [1, 2]. Several studies have indicated the immunomodulatory, cardioprotective, antiviral, anti- oxidative, hepatoprotective, antitumor, antidiabetic, and anti-inflammatory properties of A. membranaceus mainly due to the activities of the bioactive compounds contained in them [1, 3, 4]. Hindawi Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine Volume 2019, Article ID 8530961, 8 pages https://doi.org/10.1155/2019/8530961