Does adding water to dry calf starter improve performance during summer?

Abstract

The objective of this study was to determine whether addition of water to starter would improve performance, rumen fermentation parameters, blood metabolites, and behavior in dairy calves. For this purpose, 30 Holstein male calves (3 d of age; 42.0 ± 4.2 kg of body weight) were randomly assigned to 1 of the following 3 starter diets differing in moisture content: (1) 90% dry matter (DM), (2) 75% DM, and (3) 50% DM. Weaning and final body weight values were found to increase linearly with increasing dietary water. Moreover, starter intake increased linearly during the preweaning and overall periods. Average daily gain also increased linearly in calves receiving the 75% and 50% DM diets compared with those receiving the 90% DM diet. However, treatments had no effects on gain-to-feed ratio. Adding water to a starter with 50% DM led to linear increases in both total volatile fatty acids and molar proportions of acetate and propionate in the rumen but it had no effect on the molar proportions of butyrate, isovalerate, or valerate, nor did it have any effect on acetate-to-propionate ratio. Similarly, times spent on eating, ruminating, standing, lying, and nonnutritive oral behavior exhibited no differences across treatments. Finally, addition of water to the starter diet led to no significant changes in the concentrations of selected blood metabolites, respiration rate, or rectal temperature. Results indicate that calves readily accept wetter feeds with a DM content of 50% and that adding water to starter diets improves calf performance during the hot months of summer.

Growth performance, feeding behavior, health status, and blood metabolites of environmentally heat-loaded Holstein dairy calves fed diets supplemented with chromium

“…During the experiment, the average maximum THI, RH, and maximum temperature were 81.3, 11.5%, and 36.9°C, respectively, indicating a high environmental heat load (Yari et al, 2010;Beiranvand et al, 2016). We have ignored the potential effect of methionine as a part of Cr-Met supplement in the current study and discussed the results by focusing only on the possible effect of Cr.…”

Review: How Forage Feeding Early in Life Influences the Growth Rate, Ruminal Environment, and the Establishment of Feeding Behavior in Pre-Weaned Calves

“…In recent years, attempts have been made on alternative ways to increase solid feed consumption of dairy calves, such as using non-forage fiber [39], silage based feed [55,67], moisturized starter [68,69], and reconstituted hay [58,59,70]. Beet pulp is a common source included in the diet as a non-effective fiber source.…”

“…It has been documented that moisturizing the concentrate starter feed by adding water to change the DM from 90 to 50% increased DMI, ADG, and VFA production in dairy calves [68,69]. More recently, hay processing by reconstituting with water was evaluated in a series of studies published by Kargar et al [58,59,70,71].…”

Substituting corn silage with reconstituted forage or nonforage fiber sources in the starter diets of Holstein calves: effects on performance, ruminal fermentation, and blood metabolites

“…This transition involves alterations in the gastro-intestinal tract because tissues must convert from reliance on glucose supplied from milk to the use of volatile fatty acids (VFA) as primary energy substrates (Baldwin et al, 2004). Therefore, starter feeds for calves are formulated to maximize palatability of feed and DM intake (DMI) as well as VFA production and allow calves to maintain weight gain through the transition from liquid to solid feed (Beiranvand et al, 2016(Beiranvand et al, , 2019Mirzaei et al, 2017;Kargar and Kanani, 2019).…”

“…In recent years, many attempts have been made to increase DMI in dairy calves fed a total mixed ration (TMR) by moisturizing (Beiranvand et al, 2016(Beiranvand et al, , 2019 or reconstituting (Kargar and Kanani, 2019) starter feeds and feeding digestible source of nonforage fiber (Maktabi et al, 2016) or silagebased starter feeds (Mirzaei et al, 2016(Mirzaei et al, , 2017. Moisturizing the concentrate fraction of finely ground starter feed by adding water and decreasing DM content of dry TMR (10:90 forage [AH] to concentrate ratio) from 90% to 50% increased weight gain in dairy calves by increasing DMI and VFA (especially acetate and propionate) proportions (Beiranvand et al, 2016(Beiranvand et al, , 2019. Feeding a starter diet containing 10% dry vs. reconstituted AH and decreasing DM content of dry TMR from 91.2% to 83.8% nonsignificantly increased DMI (+24%; by increasing neutral detergent fiber [NDF] digestibility) and weight gain (+9%) in dairy calves during the preweaning period (Kargar and Kanani, 2019).…”