TY - JOUR
AU - Kuester, O. J.
AB - Abstract A field trial was conducted for 7 mo on a commercial dairy equipped with two Lely robotic milking units to evaluate the response of feeding a proprietary essential oil and cobalt product (EOC) on the lactational performance of lactating Holstein dairy cows. Cows were divided between two pens (57 ± 2 cows and 59 ± 3 cows for treatment [EOC] and control [C] pens, respectively), based on cow parity (2.65 ± 1.52 and 2.33 ± 1.20), days in milk (DIM) (184 ± 103 and 154 ± 94.2), and milk production (35.4 ± 11.3 and 36.9 ± 11.3 kg/d) before study initiation. Cows were group fed either an EOC or C total mixed ration (TMR) 2x/d, and pen diets were switched after 4 mo of data collection. Production data was collected daily from Lely Time for Cows (T4C) robotic milking software and was reduced to weekly observations for each cow. Management level milk production was not different (P = 0.92) between EOC and C treatments (41.5 ± 1.91 and 41.4 ± 2.05 kg/d, respectively). Fat and protein percentages were not different between EOC and C treatments (P = 0.55 and 0.56, respectively) but were numerically higher for EOC-fed cows than for C-fed cows (3.39% fat and 2.99% protein vs. 3.36% fat and 2.97% protein, respectively). Total feed intake was not different between treatments (P = 0.16) but was numerically lower for EOC-fed cows (25.7 kg/d) than for C-fed cows (25.9 kg/d). Feed efficiency (FE) was not different between treatments (P = 0.73) but was numerically lower for cows fed EOC than for cows fed C (1.60 FE and 1.62 FE, respectively). Feeding the proprietary EOC product on a commercial dairy operation that used robotic milking units did not increase management level milk production or FE but numerically increased milk percentages of fat, protein, and total feed intake. PDF This content is only available as a PDF. American Society of Animal Science © American Society of Animal Science 2016
TI - 1571 Evaluation of a proprietary blend of essential oil and cobalt on a commercial dairy
JF - Journal of Animal Science
DO - 10.2527/jam2016-1571
DA - 2016-10-01
UR - https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/oxford-university-press/1571-evaluation-of-a-proprietary-blend-of-essential-oil-and-cobalt-on-06RMqbI09E
SP - 763
EP - 763
VL - 94
IS - suppl_5
DP - DeepDyve
ER -