Effects of a blend of essential oils in milk replacer on performance, rumen fermentation, blood parameters and health scores of dairy heifers

Joana P. Campolina; Sandra G. Coelho; Anna Luiza Belli; Fernanda S. Machado; Luiz G. R. Pereira; Thierry R. Tomich; Wanessa A. Carvalho; Rodrigo O. S. Silva; Alessandra L. Voorsluys; David V. Jacob; Mariana M. Campos

. CC-BY 4.0 International license author/funder. It is made available under a The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not peer-reviewed) is the . https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.03.17.995209 doi: bioRxiv preprint 14 321 Table 2 . Pre and post-weaning milk replacer (MR) intake, starter intake, total dry 322 matter intake (DM), total crude protein intake (CP), total gross energy and water 323 intake of heifers (n = 29) of control (CON) and supplemented with blend essential 324 oils (BEO) in milk replacer during pre-weaning. 1) . At the end of week 1 until . CC-BY 4.0 International license author/funder. It is made available under a The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not peer-reviewed) is the . https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.03.17.995209 doi: bioRxiv preprint 15 330 week 3, heifers had diarrhea and this event impacted on MR intake. Differences 331 between treatments were greater in those weeks when compared with the other weeks, 332 with lower intake for CON group. It was found an effect between fecal scores and MR 333 intake (P ≤ 0.001), besides low correlation value (-0.25). Thus, results reveled an 334 inverse association between both parameters, were greater fecal scores impacted on 335 smaller MR intake, and vice versa. Intake of starter, water, total DM, CP, and gross energy, ADG and feed efficiency 342 were not affected by treatment during pre-and post-weaning (Table 2 and (Table 3) 355 during pre and post-weaning. As was also observed for intake and ADG, a week effect Table 4 ). Since there were no differences between treatments during pre-375 weaning, the carryover effect may not be assumed to be the answer for this difference.