Effect of Spirulina (Arthrospira plantensis) Supplementation on Wool Quality in Purebred and Crossbred Merino Lambs Fed Pasture and Lucerne Hay Basal Diets
Bibliographic record
Abstract
This study investigated the effects of Spirulina (Arthrospira plantensis) supplementation level, basal diet, sire breed, and sex on wool quality parameters in purebred and crossbred Merino lambs. A total of 48 lambs, over two consecutive years (n=24 per year), was randomly allocated into Spirulina supplementation level (CONTROL, LOW, MEDIUM, HIGH) groups and balanced by sire breed (Black Suffolk, Dorset, Merino, White Suffolk) and sex (ewes, wethers). Lambs had ad libitum access to a basal diet of pasture and Lucerne hay, and had Spirulina supplement daily throughout the 42-day feeding trial, after a 21-day adjustment phase. Mid-side wool samples were removed from each lamb at the beginning and end of the feeding trial and commercially analysed for quality. The wool quality data were transformed into ‘wool trait change over the feeding trial period’ by the difference between the wool measurements at the beginning and end of the experiment prior to statistical analysis. Wool clean fleece weight (CFW) was significantly influenced by level of supplementation, basal diet and sex (P<0.05). Spirulina-supplemented lambs on Lucerne hay basal diet elicited higher CFW responses which increased with supplementation level. CONTROL lambs had the lightest CFW regardless of basal diet. Sire breed and sex variations were significant (P<0.05) as wool from Suffolk-sired lambs and ewes had the highest fibre diameter coefficient of variation (CV) and CFW, respectively. CV and fibre diameter standard deviation were the most affected wool traits by significant interactions between Spirulina supplementation level, sire breed and sex. It was concluded that Spirulina supplementation with Lucerne hay basal diet improves wool CFW without compromising wool fibre diameter, comfort factor and spinning fineness in dual-purpose prime lambs.
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".