Effects of Early Supplementary Feeding on Growth Performance and Intestinal Health of Barn-Feeding Beef Calves
This experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of early supplementary feeding on growth performance,diarrhea rate,intestinal microflora and function of barn-feeding beef calves.Thirty healthy new-born calves(16 female calves and 14 male calves)with birth weight of(42.38±0.89)kg were randomly di-vided into 2 groups(control group and early supplementary feeding group),with 15 calves(8 female calves and 7 male calves)in each group.Beef cows and calves(mother and calf together)are fed in single pens.In the control group,calves suckled with their mothers and were not fed any feed before weaning;in the early supplementary feeding group,calves were suckled by their mothers,supplemented with granulated starter and high-quality oat hay at appropriate time and with increasing age.The experiment lasted for 42 days.The results showed as follows:1)the body weight of calves in early supplementary feeding group at 42 days of age was extremely significantly higher than that in control group(P＜0.01),but there was no significant difference in body weight at other days of age between control group and early supplementary feeding group(P＞0.05);the average daily gain of calves in early supplementary feeding group was extremely significantly higher than that in control group at each day of age(P＜0.01).In terms of body size indexes,the chest circumference index in early supplementary feeding group was significantly higher than that in control group at 42 days of age(P＜0.05),and there were no significant differences in other body size indexes at each day of age(P＞0.05).3)The diarrhea rate of calves in early supplementary feeding group was significantly lower than that in control group(P＜0.05),and there was no significant difference in fecal score between control group and early sup-plementary feeding group(P＞0.05).4)Compared with the control group,Simpson index and Chao1 index of intestinal flora of calves in early supplementary feeding group were significantly increased(P＜0.05)and sig-nificantly decreased(P＜0.05),respectively;the relative abundance of Faecalibacterium in the intestinal flora in early supplementary feeding group was significantly higher than that in control group(P＜0.05),and the relative abundance of Akkermansia was extremely significantly higher than that in control group(P＜0.01).In addition,a small number of Prevotella and Butyrivibrio was found in early supplementary feeding group.5)Functional prediction of intestinal flora showed that,in the function of intestinal flora of calves,the abundances of pyrimidine nucleoside residues superpathway,guanosine ribonucleotide de novo biosynthesis and uridylate monophosphate biosynthesis in early supplementary feeding group were extremely significantly higher than those in control group(P＜0.01).In conclusion,early supplementary feeding can improve the growth and de-velopment,improve the intestinal flora structure,promote the metabolisms of amino acid and energy,reduce the diarrhea rate of barn-feeding beef calves,and facilitate the implementation of early weaning.[Chinese Journal of Animal Nutrition,2024,36(7):4413-4427]
万方数据
维普
