Daily fecal pH pattern and variation in lactating dairy cows

Abstract

Highlights• Fecal pH in healthy dairy cows follows a biorhythmic pattern.• Fecal pH mesor (daily mean) occurs around feeding time.• Fecal pH amplitude (distance from mean to peak) is positively correlated with dry matter intake.

Fecal nitrogen excretion in dairy cows supplemented with feed additive containing active dry yeast

“…For the period d 21-35, a slight decrease of 0.12 pH-units was reported in group B (Figure 1). The determined pH values of the feces were in the reference range for lactating cows (Palladino et al, 2022) with a daily variation of 5.80 to 6.76.…”

“…A meta-analysis by Desnoyers et al ( 2009) showed an increased digestibility of organic matter (OM) in whole tract and dry matter intake (DMI) in ruminants supplemented with Saccharomyces cerevisiae. In a number of experiments with cows supplemented with S. cerevisiae, crude protein (CP) digestibility was improved (Wiedmeier et al, 1987;Erasmus et al, 1992;Panda et al, 1995;Wohlt et al, 1991Wohlt et al, , 1998Yoon and Stern, 1996;Miller-Webster et al, 2002;Lascano et al, 2012;Leicester et al, 2016;Perdomo et al, 2020;Li et al, 2021;Phesatcha et al, 2022). Based on the mechanisms of action, described in the literature of S. cerevisiae supplements, we set ourselves the goal of determining nitrogen excretion in the feces of dairy cows supplemented with the Biolife ® feed additive containing active dry yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae.…”

A proposed model to evaluate how changes in body condition score and the fatty acid profile of a supplement affect physiology and metabolic responses of nonlactating females

“…Still, additional research is warranted to understand if fecal pH drops from either side or both ( Neubauer et al, 2020 ). Fecal pH has been used as a marker of the pH status in the small intestine ( Ferreira et al, 1980 ), depending on the diet ( Erfle et al, 1982 ; Schubert et al, 2022 ) and postfeeding time ( Palladino et al, 2022 ). To the best of our knowledge, this is the first experiment reporting a daily variation in fecal pH for ruminants not challenged with an acidosis model ( Sulzberger et al, 2016 ), as well as the benefits of feeding CFA in replacement of corn.…”