The present study was conducted to assess the effects of pre-weaning probiotic treatments on growth performance of male Holstein calves. For experimental treatments, 20 male calves were divided into 2 groups as of control and treatment group. Control group calves were supplied with fresh milk daily in two meals without any growth promoting supplement. Together with fresh milk supply, treatment group calves were supplied with additional 2 g probiotics to their morning meal. Throughout 56-day milk-feeding period, live weights (LW) and feed consumptions (FC) of the calves were determined. As compared to the control group, probiotic-supplemented calves had 5.25% higher weaning live weight and 11.4% higher daily live weight gain (P less than 0.05). Probiotic-supplemented calves consumed 2% more feed than the control calves (P>0.05) and had 9.52% better feed conversion ratio than the control group calves (P less than 0.05). Probiotic supplementation did not affect blood biochemical parameters significantly (P less than 0.05), except ALT, triglyceride and iron levels (P less than 0.05). It was concluded that probiotic supplementation during milk-feeding period improved growth performance of experimental Holstein calves.

This study was conducted to determine the effects of spirulina (Sipurulina platensis) (SP) supplementation to quail ration on bird live weights, change in live weight, feed consumption, feed conversion ratio, carcass yield and serum biochemical parameters. A total of 220 Japanese quail chicks (Coturnix coturnix japonica) were used in experiments. There were 4 treatment groups including a control group with 55 birds in each group. Each group was divided into 5 sub-groups with 11 birds in each. Experiments were conducted for 35 days. Control group was fed with a basal ration. Treatment groups were fed with spirulina-supplemented (1, 2 and 4%) rations. Spirulina supplementations had significant effects on live weights. However, differences in live weight gain, feed consumption, feed conversion ratio and carcass yields were not found to be significant. SP supplementation did not have significant effects on serum total cholesterol, glucose, protein, triglyceride and uric acid concentrations. Although different spirulina supplementations yielded similar growth performance and carcass traits with the control treatment, it can still be stated that such treatments slightly improved growth performance and carcass traits of quail.