The effect of dry matter percentage of milk and a combination of medicinal plants on performance and blood parameters of lactating calves

Dissertation for Master's Degree

In the field of Agricultural Engineering, Animal Science - Animal Nutrition

Abstract

         To study the effect of dry matter percentage of milk and a combination of medicinal plants on experimental performance in the form of a completely randomized basic design with factorial arrangement 2x2 was designed on 40 Holstein male calves from 10 days to 70 days old. Each treatment consisted of 10 repetitions. The experimental treatments were: Treatment 1) 7 kg milk containing 12.5% ??dry matter (CO), Treatment 2) 7 kg milk containing 12.5% ??dry matter with herbal additive (PCO), Treatment 3) 7 kg milk containing 20% ??dry matter (HD), Treatment 4) 7 kg milk containing 20% ??dry matter with herbal additive (PHD). The addition of medicinal plants was a combination of dried rosemary, ginger and marzah plants, and 10 grams of this ground mixture was added to the morning milk. To increase the milk solids in each serving, we added 262.5 grams of dried whole milk to 3.5 liters of milk and mixed it. The data obtained about dry matter intake, body weight, stool score, skeletal growth, and blood parameters were analyzed by SAS software. Before weaning, data analysis showed that the average daily dry matter intake and total period, daily weight gain and total period up to 40 days old were significantly higher in calves fed with milk containing 20% ??dry matter compared to the group fed with milk containing 12.5% ??dry matter (P=0.0001), but after weaning, no significant difference between the performance of the treatments was observed, the width between the hip bones was significantly higher in the group fed milk with higher dry matter. (p=0.0001). Adding a mixture of medicinal plants had no significant effect on the performance of calves (P<0.05). However, medicinal plants, milk dry matter level and the interaction effect of medicinal plants and milk dry matter level significantly improved the blood parameters of calves, increasing glucose, decreasing total protein, increasing albumin and decreasing blood serum globulin. In general, feeding milk with higher dry matter improved growth rate and health indicators in calves.

Key words: milk, milk dry matter, medicinal plants, weight gain

Chapter 1

"Introduction and Research plan »

Introduction

Calves are under the influence of significant stress from the time of birth to weaning due to the tremendous physiological and metabolic changes due to which they transform from a monogastric creature into a ruminant. In order to produce high-yielding cows, it is necessary to feed the suckling calves with high genetic predisposition in a suitable and optimal way. The economic efficiency of cattle farming depends to a large extent on the success of the cattle breeder in growing and rearing calves for replacement. Today, different views have been presented regarding the methods and amounts of feeding milk to calves, Khan (2011) reported that feeding high amounts of milk to calves has increased daily weight, improved feed efficiency, and finally improved calf performance[89]. In this regard, it has been seen that feeding a high amount of milk at early ages can have long-term effects on calf performance, Sobron (2009) reported that when calves were fed more milk, these animals produced more milk during the lactation period [141]. Milleria (1966) observed an increase in stool score and an increase in days of diarrhea when high amounts of milk were presented [102]. There is limited information regarding the increase of milk solids, and it is possible that an increase in milk solids is an effective solution to feed higher amounts of milk without causing health problems for young calves. In the animal husbandry industry, especially cattle breeding, one of the main goals of producing more calves is to ultimately increase profits. The main goal in all industrial activities is to increase production in different parts and ultimately increase the profitability of the industrial unit. In modern dairy farms, the increase in calf mortality is one of the main factors of unprofitability of the animal husbandry unit, which is one of the main factors.In modern farms raising dairy cows, the increase in calf mortality is one of the main factors of the unprofitability of the animal husbandry unit, which is reported to be among the main reasons for this mortality, diarrhea and weakness in the immune system in the first days after birth. A drop in the immune system for any reason can, in addition to increasing the cost of raising a calf, which includes more medical and labor costs, result in a decrease in performance, including a decrease in feed consumption, a decrease in daily weight gain, and a decrease in the efficiency of using feed, which aligns these issues. It can cause economic loss. Therefore, it is clear that increasing the efficiency of the immune system can help to a high extent to the health of calves and improve performance and ultimately guarantee more economic profit. The use of antibiotics as a growth stimulant increases the growth rate and increases the amount of production and, as a result, the profit from cultivation. Considering the effect of using antibiotics in improving health, the animal can use nutrients for better growth and differentiation instead of using nutrients to fight infections. Researchers reported that the continuous and irregular use of large amounts of antibiotics in animal feed causes the creation of resistant bacteria [73]. Chavez et al. (2008) reported that there is a possibility of transfer of antibiotic residues to humans through consumption of animal products [33]. Therefore, alternatives to the use of growth-promoting antibiotics should be identified and introduced to livestock breeders, so that not only the efficiency and economic profit will not decrease, but also the concerns about the health of consumers will be removed [64]. In recent years, compounds called probiotics, prebiotics, organic acids and essential oils have been investigated as alternatives to growth-promoting antibiotics [45]. Since the proper performance of the calf in the first days after birth and lactation will guarantee the survival and maintenance of optimal conditions of a herd in the future, and considering the importance of this issue and the existence of sometimes contradictory results in the research conducted in this field, as well as the lack of study of this issue in the environmental conditions and dairy cattle breeding systems in Iran, it is necessary and necessary to investigate the effect of milk, milk with high dry matter and a mixture of medicinal plants on the performance of lactating calves during a series of experiments.

1-1- Project objectives

Investigation of the effects of milk with high dry matter on the performance and blood metabolites of suckling calves Investigating the effects of a mixture of medicinal plants on the performance and blood metabolites of suckling calves

Investigating the interaction effect of milk with high dry matter and a mixture of medicinal plants on performance and blood metabolites of suckling calves Medicinal plants in milk lead to improved calf performance.

Adding medicinal plants to milk leads to a more favorable metabolic profile in nursing calves.

ABSTRACT

In order to investigate the effect of the milk with high dry matter on dairy calves performance, in a 2*2 experiment. factorial, forty calves (10 per treatment) were randomly to 4 treatments and were studied for 40 days. The treatments were included 1) 7 kg milk with 12.5 % DM without herbal additive (CO) 2) 7 kg milk with 12.5 % DM with herbal additive (PCO), 3) 7 kg milk with 20 % DM without herbal additive (HD) and 4) 7 kg milk with 20% DM with herbal additive (PHD).

Additive medicinal plants were a mixture of 10 grams of dried and milled rosemary, ginger and fennel that added to milk in the morning. To enhance dry milk per meal, 262.5 gr of dried whole milk was added to 3.5 l of milk. The average of daily and total dry matter intake, average daily gain and starter intake in calves fed with 20% DM milk was significantly higher than calves were fed with 12.5% ??DM milk (p<0.05), but there was no significant difference between experimental treatments in post weaning.