Effects of Compound Chinese Herbal Medicine Additives on Production Performance,Milk Quality and Serum Immune Indexes of Lactating Dairy Cows
This experiment was conducted to study the effects of compound Chinese herbal medicine addi-tives on the production performance,milk quality,and serum immune indicators of lactating cows.Sixty 24-month-old Chinese Holstein dairy cows were randomly divided into 4 groups with 3 replicates in each group and 5 cows in each replicate.Others in the control group were fed a basal diet,and the oth-ers in the three experimental groups were fed the basal diet supplemented with 100,200 g/d and 400 g/d compound Chinese herbal additives,respectively.The experiment lasted for 30 days.The results showed as follows:Compared with the control group,dietary supplementation of 200 g/d and 400 g/d compound Chinese herbal additives significantly increased the average daily milk yield of lactating cows(P<0.05),and significantly decreased the ratio of feed to milk of lactating cows(P<0.05);dietary supplementation of 200 g/d and 400 g/d compound Chinese herbal medicine additive significantly increased the milk protein level of lactating cows(P<0.05),and sig-nificantly decreased the somatic cell count of milk(P<0.05).Dietary 200 g/d and 400 g/d compound Chinese herbal medicine additive significantly in-creased the contents of immunoglobulin A(IgA),immunoglobulin G(IgG)and interleukin-2(IL-2)in serum of lactating dairy cows(P<0.05).The content of interleukin-1β(IL-1β)in serum of lactating cows was significantly decreased(P<0.05).In conclusion,dietary supplementation of compound Chinese herbal medicine additives can improve the production performance,dairy quality and immune function of lactating dairy cows.Considering the economic cost,the recommended dosage of compound Chinese herbal medicine additives is 200 g/d.
compound Chinese herbal medicine additiveslactating cowsproduction performancemilk qualityimmune index