Invited Review: Advances in efficiency of growing dairy replacements

Supplementation of direct-fed microbial Enterococcus faecium 669 affects performance of preweaning dairy calves

“…The preweaning period has been identified as a critical timeframe of a calf's life that can affect short-, mid-, and long-term performance of the developing heifer and mature cow ( Soberon et al, 2012 ; Bach et al, 2021 ). As an example, other researchers demonstrated that milk production is positively correlated with ADG from birth to breeding and that for every 1 kg of ADG during the preweaning period, 305-d milk yield increased up to 1,114 kg during the first lactation ( Soberon et al, 2012 ).…”

“…In other words, the differences on BW (experiments 1 and 2) and ADG (experiment 2) between CON and DFM calves increased as the preweaning phase advanced. Previous studies in the literature demonstrated that preweaning performance directly affects the productive performance of a lactating mature cow ( Soberon et al, 2012 ; Bach et al, 2021 ). In experiment 2, the occurrence of diarrhea episodes in the first 4 wk of the trial decreased when DFM was supplemented, suggesting that acute diarrhea is the primary issue in the first 4 wk of a calf's life ( Wang et al, 2022 ) and that the gut of the calves was more resilient in tolerating potential pathogenic challenges.…”