Effect of increasing doses of a microencapsulated blend of essential oils on performance of lactating primiparous dairy cows

The effects of supplementation with a blend of cinnamaldehyde and eugenol on feed intake and milk production of dairy cows

“…Somatic cell count was not consistently affected by CE. In agreement with our observations, previous experiments investigating other PE (Benchaar et al, 2007;Spanghero et al, 2009;Santos et al, 2010) or the one used in the current study (Tager and Krause, 2011;Tekippe et al, 2013) reported no effect of PE supplementation on SCC. In experiment 2, however, we detected a treatment by parity interaction such that SCC was markedly decreased in multiparous but not primiparous cows.…”

“…This is consistent with our observation that many of the differences we observed were at the low dose (200 mg/d) or the high dose (600 mg/d) but not the intermediate dose (400 mg/d). Other PE have been associated with increased milk lactose yield (Benchaar et al, 2007), increased milk fat yield (Santos et al, 2010), or increased milk fat and protein yields (Spanghero et al, 2009). Those findings, taken together with the results of the current study, clearly show that PE can alter milk composition.…”

“…Similarly, feeding cows a blend of eugenol, geranyl acetate, and coriander decreased DMI but increased milk fat yield, indicating a shift in energy usage for milk fat synthesis (Santos et al, 2010). Supplementation of lactating dairy cows with a blend of cinnamaldehyde, thymol, and orange peel fed at a moderate dose (640 mg/d) increased both the fat and protein contents of milk but had no effect on DMI or milk production (Spanghero et al, 2009). A blend of cinnamaldehyde and eugenol fed at moderate doses (~500 mg/d) had no effect on intake or performance when fed to lactating dairy cows (Tager and Krause, 2011;Tekippe et al, 2013), whereas at a very high dose (10 g/d) it negatively affected rumen fermentation (Tager and Krause, 2011).…”

“…Several investigations have been conducted to determine the effect of various PE on production performance of dairy cows (Benchaar et al, 2007;Spanghero et al, 2009;Tassoul and Shaver, 2009;Santos et al, 2010;Tager and Krause, 2011;Tekippe et al, 2013). Feeding a blend of thymol, eugenol, vanillin, guaiacol, and limonene has been shown to increase DMI and FCM of lactating dairy cows fed a moderate dose (600 mg/d; Kung et al, 2008), whereas at greater doses it had no effect on intake or production but increased milk lactose content and rumen pH (750 mg/d; Benchaar et al, 2007) or increased rumen pH alone (2 g/d; Benchaar et al, 2006).…”

Effects of mixed essential oils from eucalyptus, thyme and anise on composition, coagulation properties and antioxidant capacity of the milk of dairy cows

“…Studies reporting no (Hristov et al, 2013) or the positive effects (Giannenas et al, 2011) of EO on animal performance are indications of the natural variability in the bioactivity and bioavailability of different EO. This phenomenon might also be decisive for the variability of the effects on milk composition and properties that have already been observed (Benchaar et al, 2007;Spanghero et al, 2009;Santos et al, 2010;Wall et al, 2014). Silva Filho et al (2017) showed that EO tended to reduce the somatic cell count (SCC) of the milk and thus may help to reduce the risk for mastitis.…”