Effect of biotin supplementation on milk yield of Girolando cows reared in a tropical climate
The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of biotin supplementation on milk yield and the reproductive efficiency in Girolando cows. The study was conducted on a dairy farm located in central Brazil, between April 2012 and December 2016. Thirty-six Girolando cows in their first lactatio...
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Published in | Tropical animal health and production Vol. 51; no. 6; pp. 1661 - 1665 |
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Main Authors | , , , , , , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
Dordrecht
Springer Netherlands
01.07.2019
Springer Nature B.V |
Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of biotin supplementation on milk yield and the reproductive efficiency in Girolando cows. The study was conducted on a dairy farm located in central Brazil, between April 2012 and December 2016. Thirty-six Girolando cows in their first lactation were used. The cows were distributed in two treatment groups, each with equivalent weight distributions. Control treatment (CT) cows (
n
= 18) received a diet without any supplemental biotin, whereas biotin treatment (BT) cows (
n
= 18) received a diet supplemented with 20 mg/day of biotin during lactation. Biotin supplementation caused a significant increase (
p
= 0.001) in milk yield in the second lactation, and a trend (
p
= 0.09) toward higher average production during the three lactations was evaluated. There was no statistically significant difference between the treatments in terms of reproductive efficiency. In conclusion, biotin supplementation (20 mg/day) during lactation for Girolando cows reared in a tropical climate is able to increase milk yield, but does not improve reproductive efficiency. |
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ISSN: | 0049-4747 1573-7438 |
DOI: | 10.1007/s11250-019-01862-w |