Deciphering the influence of soil and feed on the nutritional status of ruminants in rainfed areas using metagenomic analysis

The soil–plant-animal continuum is an emerging domain in biological research and hence, to ascertain this aspect, the present study was conducted in three agro-ecologically different areas in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, India. The goal of this work was to explore the impact of feed type and geographical conditions on the growth dynamics of sheep feed with three different diets – sorghum stover (Vizag district), groundnut halums (Krishna district) and red gram chunni (Ranga Reddy district). Animals were fed these diets at night daily for 90 days after their routine daytime grazing. The study regions varied in altitude, annual rainfall and mean temperature. Soil analysis was performed in these regions to check for pH, mineral content, organic carbon and bacterial composition. Growth dynamics (average daily gain of 41.56–77.11 g per day) and feed conversion ratios (6.26–10.93) differed markedly (p