In order to investigate the effect of linseed oil and fat-soluble vitamins (E, D, A) on performance and blood parameters of suckling calves, an experiment was conducted using 28 Holstein suckling calves in a completely randomized design. Calves at the age of 4 days were completely randomly assigned to one of the 4 tested treatments that included

1) Full milk with initial starter (witness)

2) control diet supplemented with linseed oil (0.3 body weight)

3) control diet and 7 cc of fat-soluble vitamins

4) Control diet supplemented with linseed oil (0.3 body weight) and 7 cc of fat-soluble vitamins.

Blood sampling was done on days 1, 14, 28, 56 from the jugular vein. The results showed that experimental treatments had no significant effect on feed consumption, weight gain, rectal temperature and skeletal growth parameters of calves. Blood serum parameters such as glucose, total protein, creatinine, triglyceride, and serum urea were not affected by experimental treatments. Although serum glucose and urea in treatment 4 were lower than the other three treatments. Cholesterol and HDL showed a significant difference among the tested treatments. So that the linseed oil treatment along with vitamins and the treatment which received linseed oil alone had more cholesterol and HDL respectively than the other two treatments. The results obtained from this experiment show that the use of polyunsaturated fatty acids of linseed oil or the injection of fat-soluble vitamins not only did not have any adverse effect on the performance of calves, but also improved some serum metabolites.

writers

Mehrdad Mohed Nasab Abdul Mansour Tahmasabi Seyed Alireza Vakili Abbas Ali Naserian
  Animal Science, Faculty of Agriculture, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran

Animal Science, Faculty of Agriculture, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iransi Mashhad

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