415 MAIN ©1996-2014 All Rights Reserved. Online Journal of Veterinary Research . You may not store these pages in any form except for your own personal use. All other usage or distribution is illegal under international copyright treaties. Permission to use any of these pages in any other way besides the before mentioned must be gained in writing from the publisher. This article is exclusively copyrighted in its entirety to OJVR. This article may be copied once but may not be, reproduced or re-transmitted without the express permission of the editors. This journal satisfies the refereeing requirements (DEST) for the Higher Education Research Data Collection (Australia). Linking:To link to this page or any pages linking to this page you must link directly to this page only here rather than put up your own page. OJVRTM Online Journal of Veterinary Research© Volume 18(5): 415-422, 2014. Effects of discarded dates on rumen fermentation and digestibility in Kermani sheep. Jalal Bayati Zadeh * , Amin Khezri, Omid Dayani, Reza Tahmasbi Department of Animal Science, Faculty of Agriculture, Shahid bahonar University, Kerman, Iran ABSTRACT Bayati Zadeh J, Khezri A, Dayani O, Tahmasbi R., Effects of discarded dates on rumen fermentation and digestibility in Kermani sheep, Onl J Vet Res., 18(5): 415-422, 2014. The effect of discarded dates on rumen fermentation and digestibility in Kermani sheep are described. Four rumen cannulated sheep were fed in a 4 × 4 Latin square design for 21 days. Discarded dates were supplemented at a rate of 10, 20 and 30% in the diet whereas controls were not given dates. Dry matter intake, total tract apparent digestibility of nutrient and other rumen parameters were evaluated. Results suggested that higher levels of dietary dates reduced rumen pH and NH 3 -N compared with controls. Dry matter intake feed and Nitrogen balance were higher in sheep fed 30% discarded dates and lowest in controls fed none. Digestible dry matter (DM), crude protein (CP), organic matter(OM), acid detergent fiber (ADF) and neutral detergent fiber (NDF) values did not appear to be affected by the supplement. Discarded dates as a supplement appears to increase utilization efficiency of nitrogen in the rumen. The results must be interpreted with caution as only four sheep were used in the experiment. Keywords: Discarded dates, Digestibility, nitrogen metabolism, Fermentation, sheep.