PSIV-22 Use of a mixture of olive pomace extract, a palatability enhancer and tributyrin as feed additive on the recovery of unweaned dairy beef calves with pneumonia at farm arrival

Pneumonia is the main health issue that farmers have to fight when calves arrive at the rearing farm after marketing and transportation. Calves with pneumonia have a low intake impairing the recovery at arrival. The use of additives to enhance intake and immunity at arrival could be a strategy to minimize those negative effects. A total of 36 calves [body weight (BW) = 71.3 ± 2.83 kg] with pneumonia (ultrasound lung score ≥ 3) arriving at a commercial farm after marketing and transportation were used to evaluate the effect of a mixture of feed additives (FA) comprising a palatability enhancer, standardized olive pomace extract and tributyrin on performance in calves fed 2 L of MR twice daily at 12.5% and ad libitum concentrate feed. Calves were allocated in 4 pens and distributed in 2 treatments (2 pens/treatment); calves fed a concentrate feed without FA since the beginning of the study (arrival to the rearing farm after transport) until weaning (CT; n = 18); calves fed a concentrate feed containing the mixture of FA (CM; n = 18) from arrival until weaning. Calf BW and pen intake were recorded weekly. On d 21 of the study, calves were partially weaned and only milk replacer was offered in the morning, and on d 28 all calves were completely weaned. The study lasted 35 d. Data were analyzed with a mixed-effects model. Final BW of CM calves (95.9 ± 1.29 kg) tended to be greater (P = 0.08) compared with BW of CT calves (92.7 ± 1.29 kg). The CM calves tended (P = 0.06) to have greater ADG than CT calves (0.70 ± 0.037 kg/d and 0.61 ± 0.037 kg/d, respectively). However, a greater sample size may be necessary to observe differences in average concentrate intake measured by pen between treatments (0.82 ± 0.033 kg/d and 0.87 ± 0.033 kg/d for CT and CM, respectively). These results highlight the potential of using a mixture of feed additives with olive pomace extract, palatability enhancers, and tributyrin on the performance recovery of calves with pneumonia on arrival at the rearing farm.