Impact of glucogenic additive in transition dairy cow diets of varying ruminal starch degradability on yield and composition of milk and reproductive parameters

Abstract

A two-factorial experiment was carried out on 6 groups (10 animals each) of Polish Black and White Holstein-Friesian cows in the transition period to determine the effect of glucogenic additive (GA) to the diets containing grains of varied ruminal starch degradation on cow performance. The animals from 3 control groups (C-groups) were fed the diets without any additive, whereas 3 other, experimental ones (A-groups) received the diets with additive of glucogenic preparation (450 g per head/day) comprising calcium propionate and loose propylene glycol (1 : 1). In the control groups as well as in the experimental ones, three analogical treatments, differing in concentrate composed of grain species of varying ruminal degradability of starch, i.e. maize (M) -low ruminal degradability, barley and wheat (BW) -high ruminal degradability and marriage of them (MBW) were conducted. Finally, the treatments were: C-M, C-BW, C-MBW, A-M, A-BW, and A-MBW. The rations of all groups based on maize silage, haylage, and meadow hay were mixed at 69 : 19 : 12 ratio (dry matter (DM) basis) and given ad libitum. Besides, all the animals received adequate concentrate rations to satisfy their nutritional requirements. The experiment started two weeks before the expected parturition and lasted till the 6 th lactation week. Neither GA nor a type of grain in the diets showed significant negative influence on DM intake. A glucogenic additive has positively affected some basal nutrient digestibility, elevating significantly DM and crude protein (CP) coefficients of the apparent total tract digestibility (CATTD), by about 3 percentage points. The GA × grain interactions (P ≤ 0.05) in CATTD of CP and nitrogen-free extract (NFE) were stated, with the peak values reported in the A-BW treatment. GA increased (P ≤ 0.05) daily milk yield by nearly 5% in comparison with the control treatments. GA × grain interaction was noted with the best effect in the treatment where GA was given along with maize-barley-wheat-based concentrate. Besides, the glucogenic additive decreased (P ≤ 0.05) protein (PDI) expenditure per 1 kg of fat-corrected milk (FCM) by ca. 6% and raised (by 0.15 percentage point in week 6) protein content, while lowered the urea milk level in weeks 3 and 6 of lactation by approximately 15%. It showed beneficial effect on cow reproductive indicators reducing the time interval from calving to successful insemination and improving insemination index.

Energy efficiency of diet for periparturient dairy cows supplemented with free fatty acids or glucogenic additives

“…The diet of the transition cows was supplemented daily for 5 or 8 weeks (for 2 weeks before the expected calving and 3 or 6 weeks of lactation) with the full dose of the experimental additives (500 g per head) as a component of the experimental concentrate. The dose of the additives was based on the authors' previous experiments (22)(23)(24) and the available literature (31,32,41).…”

“…In the transition period, cows with high genetic potential are most susceptible to energy deficiency associated with loss of appetite (32). This results, at best, in a decreased milk production and changes in milk composition.…”

Impact of Glucogenic Mixture Supplementation on Performance of Transition Dairy Zaraibi Does

“…However, supplementation showed no significant differences in milk components at 15 d of lactation, while milk fat, protein, ash and total solids percentages were increased significantly at 30 d of lactation. Similarly, Lomander et al (2012), Matras et al (2012), Omazic et al (2013) and Husseni et al (2015) reported an increase in milk production when dairy animals were fed glucogenic additives. Conversely, other studies in which dry glycerol was fed to dairy cows during early lactation reported no significant effects on milk yield and components (Carvalho et al, 2011;Kass et al, 2012;Wilbert et al, 2013;Bros et al, 2014;Kafilzadeh et al, 2015).…”

“…In this regard, the dairy livestock industry utilizes the glucogenic supplements to improve animals' energy balance, consequently productive and reproductive performance (Matras et al, 2012;Mesilati-Stahy et al, 2015;Porcu et al, 2017). Generally, several studies on ruminant animals concluded that the glucogenic precursors as energy supplementations or as diets corn replacements have some positive effectiveness on feed intake, nutrients digestibility, carcass characteristics and meat quality as well as productive and reproductive performance of lactating animals (Carvalho et al, 2011;Matras et al, 2012;Omazic 2013;Kafilzadeh et al, 2015;Khattab 2015;Porcu et al, 2017).…”

“…In this regard, the dairy livestock industry utilizes the glucogenic supplements to improve animals' energy balance, consequently productive and reproductive performance (Matras et al, 2012;Mesilati-Stahy et al, 2015;Porcu et al, 2017). Generally, several studies on ruminant animals concluded that the glucogenic precursors as energy supplementations or as diets corn replacements have some positive effectiveness on feed intake, nutrients digestibility, carcass characteristics and meat quality as well as productive and reproductive performance of lactating animals (Carvalho et al, 2011;Matras et al, 2012;Omazic 2013;Kafilzadeh et al, 2015;Khattab 2015;Porcu et al, 2017). However, each of glucogenic precursors, such as glycerol (Syahniar et al, 2016;White et al, 2016), propylene glycol (Khattab 2015;Mesilati-Stahy et al, 2015), glycerin (Chanjula et al, 2014;Kafilzadeh et al, 2015) and calcium salts of propionate (Liu et al, 2010;Sanchez et al, 2014), has a different route for conversion to glucose and causing a rapid and sustained rise of blood glucose.…”