Immune Response and Productive Performance of Dairy Buffaloes and their Offspring Supplemented with Black Seed Oil

Twenty pregnant buffaloes, eight weeks before the expected calving date, were assigned into two homogeneous groups of 10 animals each, according to their season of lactation (2nd to 8th season of lactation); The first group (G1) were fed on a ration consisting of concentrate feed mixture (22% yellow corn, 35% cotton seed meal, 33% wheat bran, 4% rice bran, 3% molasses, 2% limestone and 1% sodium chloride), rice straw and berseem (in winter) berseem hay or corn silage (in summer) according to the feeding regime of the traditional farm system. The second group (G2) was fed the control ration plus 10 ml black seed oil (BSO)/head/day. After calving, the offspring of buffaloes of each group were divided into two similar groups of five animals each, according to their birth weight. Calves of T1 and T2 represented the offspring of G1 buffaloes (the control group) while those of T3 and T4 belonged to buffaloes of G2. The results showed that nutrients digestibility were nearly similar for both G1 and G2 (P>0.05). Total plasma protein, albumin, GPT, GOT, plasma immunoglobulin and blood hematocrit for lactating buffaloes tended to be higher (P