Hematological Changes in Sika Doe and Suckling Fawn Fed with Spent Mushroom Substrate of Pleurotus ostreatus

SIMPLE SUMMARY: Sika deer velvet antler is a highly valued nutraceutic in traditional Chinese medicine with extremely high market value. Therefore, it is very important to find low-priced feed and reduce the feeding cost of sika deer to improve profitability. Mushrooms can be grown on agricultural wastes such as straw, cottonseed hull, and corn stalks, but with the process of cultivating mushrooms, spent mushroom substrate (SMS) has also been produced. Improper handling of SMS could still cause environmental pollution. The results show that SMS of Pleurotus ostreatus (SMS-MP) can be digested by sika doe and has no adverse effect on suckling fawn. At the same time, SMS-MP reduces the feeding cost of sika doe and avoids the pollution caused by SMS-MP to the environment. ABSTRACT: Sika deer velvet antler is the most important animal nutraceutic in traditional Chinese medicine. Reducing the breeding cost of sika deer by looking for a low-cost diet is the main research direction at present. The purpose of this experiment was to find an alternative diet for sika deer and reduce the cost of the diet by using spent mushroom substrate (SMS) as a concentrate supplement. The apparent digestibility for sika doe and the hematological changes of sika doe and suckling fawn were measured by replacing 10% of the concentrate supplement with SMS of Pleurotus ostreatus (SMS-MP). Compared with the control group, the digestibility of dry matter (DM), total protein (TP), globulin (GLO), and cholesterol (CHOL) of sika doe were significantly decreased (p < 0.05), and glucose (GLU), alanine (Ala), phenylalanine (Phe), and proline (Pro) of sika doe were significantly increased (p < 0.05) after the replacement of SMS-MP. Compared with the control group, the serum GLU of suckling fawn was significantly decreased (p < 0.05) and the phosphatase (ALP) was significantly increased after the replacement of SMS-MP (p < 0.05). There were no significant differences in the immune globulin and amino acid of suckling fawns between the two groups (p > 0.05). The present findings confirm the applicability of SMS-MP as a sika doe concentrate supplement. At the same time, using SMS, a waste resource, can not only reduce the breeding cost of sika doe, but also make full use of SMS to reduce environmental pollution.