alireza aghashahi; hadi hosseini; sayed abdoullah hosseini; AMIRREZA SAFAEI; Ali Reza Yousefi; Jafar Ramazankhany
Volume 21, Issue 3 , September 2019, , Pages 329-337
Abstract
This study was aimed to investigate the effect of adding dried dairy wastes to the starter diet on growth performance in Holstein dairy calves. A total of 28 female newborn Holstein dairy calves were randomly allocated to four groups (n=7/group) and after two weeks of habituation to experimental conditions ...
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This study was aimed to investigate the effect of adding dried dairy wastes to the starter diet on growth performance in Holstein dairy calves. A total of 28 female newborn Holstein dairy calves were randomly allocated to four groups (n=7/group) and after two weeks of habituation to experimental conditions and diet, in a completely randomized design, individually fed starter diets containing 0 (control), 10, 20, or 30% dried dairy waste up to eight weeks of age. Feed intake, weight gain, and feed efficiency (gained weight/consumed feed) were measured weekly, during the experimental period. Results showed that body weight, weight gain, feed intake, and feed efficiency were not affected by the treatments. Interactive effect of treatments by week showed that the highest weight gain was for calves fed by the diet containing 10% dairy waste or control group at first week. However, the highest gain was recorded for those that received 30% dairy waste at week five of the experiment (P<0.05). In conclusion, the results of the present study revealed that the inclusion of dried dairy products up to 30% of calves’ starter diet had no adverse effect on performance, and therefore can be used as an affordable and valuable nutritional by-product of the dairy industry in the nutrition of calves.