Effect of Duration of High-Grain Feeding on Chewing, Feeding Behavior, and Salivary Composition in Cows with or without a Phytogenic Feed Supplement

Abstract

Switching diets from forage to a high-grain (HG) diet increases the risk of rumen fermentation disorders in cattle. However, the effects of the duration of the HG feeding, after the diet switch, on animal behavior and health have received considerably less attention. This experiment primarily aimed to assess the effects of the duration of an HG diet on the chewing, eating, and lying behavior and salivation dynamics in a control group (CON) and a group of cows receiving a phytogenic feed supplement (TRT) at 0.04% (DM basis), which included L-menthol, thymol, eugenol, mint oil, and cloves powder. The experiment was a crossover design with nine non-lactating cows, and two experimental periods with an intermediate washout of four weeks. In each period, the cows were first fed a forage diet for a week to collect baseline measurements representing week 0; then, the diet was switched over a week to HG (65% concentrate), which was fed for four continuous weeks (week 1, week 2, week 3, and week 4 on an HG diet, respectively). The cows were divided in two groups of four and five animals and were randomly allocated to CON or TRT. The data analysis revealed that at the start of the HG feeding, the dry matter intake and the cows’ number of lying bouts increased, but the eating time, rumination time, and meal frequency decreased, resulting in a greater eating rate. We also found that an advanced duration on an HG diet further decreased the rumination time, total chewing time, chewing index, and sorting in favor of short feed particles, with the lowest values in week 4. The feed bolus size increased but feed the ensalivation decreased in week 4 compared to week 0. The dietary switch increased salivary lysozyme activity, and the advanced duration on the HG diet increased salivary pH, but salivary phosphate decreased in weeks 1 and 2 on the HG diet. Supplementation with TRT increased sorting in favor of physically effective NDF (peNDF) in week 2 and increased salivary pH in week 4 on an HG diet. Overall, the negative effects of the HG diet in cattle are more pronounced during the initial stage of the HG feeding. However, several detrimental effects were exacerbated with the cows’ advanced duration on feed, with host adaptive changes still observed after 3 and 4 weeks following the diet switch. The TRT mitigated some of the negative effects through the temporal improvement of the salivary properties and the intake of peNDF, which are known to modulate rumen fermentation.

Elucidating the factors and consequences of the severity of rumen acidosis in first-lactation Holstein cows during transition and early lactation

“…The chewing behavior was measured during 3 consecutive days in week 3 ap, week 1 ap, and week 7 pp from 00:00 h to 23:59 h using validated rumination halters (RumiWatch System, ITIN + Hoch GmbH, Switzerland; Kröger et al, 2016 ) according to the procedure and the parameters described by Rivera-Chacon et al (2022b) . In brief, all halters were attached to the cows one day before the measurements started to allow the cows to get used to them.…”

“…Consequently, a sorting index of 100 indicated no sorting of the particle fraction, whereas a sorting index above indicated that the cows sorted for that fraction and a sorting index below 100 indicated that the cows sorted against that fraction. The diurnal lying behavior of cows was determined on all days in week 2 pp and week 7 pp using data loggers (HOBO Pendant G Acceleration Data Logger, Onset Computer Corp., Bourne, MA) and following the protocol and parameters outlined by Rivera-Chacon et al (2022b) .…”