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Influences of Barley and Oat Silages for Beef Cows on Occurrence of Myopathy in Their Calves1
Influences of Barley and O a t Silages for Beef Cows on O c c u r r e n c e of M y o p a t h y in T h e i r Calves 1 H. HIDIROGLOU, M. IVAN, and K. J. JENKINS Animal Research Institute Research Branch AgricuIture Canada Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0C6 ABSTRACT
disorder develops in suckling calves where the dams are fed diets mostly of local feedstuffs (6, 7). Recently it has become common in northern Ontario to use cereal silage as the only roughage for beef cattle during the winter. Several reports (15, 16) have indicated that the type of roughage consumed by beef cows can affect the fatty acid composition of the milk lipids. F a t t y acid composition of dietary lipids can affect markedly the development of dystrophy (2, 9). As the diet of the suckling calf is mainly milk during the period when it is most susceptible to NMD, the maternal roughage feeding program might have an important influence on development of the disorder. This work describes the effect of winterfeeding barley silage or oat silage to beef cows on the fatty acid composition of the milk fat and on the occurrence of NMD in the suckling calyes.
Sixteen pregnant Shorthorn cows were winter-fed either oat or barley silage, both of which were low in selenium (<.1 ppm). Two months before calving, as well as at calving and a month later, four cows on each diet were given intramuscularly a preparation containing 1360 IU of vitamin E and 30 mg selenium as sodium selenite. Barley silage lipids contained higher linoleic (33.2 versus 22.3%) and palmitic acids (32.3 versus 23.1%), and lower oleic (6.3 versus 22.1%)and linolenic acids (20.9 versus 30.9%) than oat silage. Three calves born from the untreated dams on barley silage died from nutritional muscular dystrophy by 50 days of age whereas none of the calves died either from the untreated cows on oat silage or from any of the selenium/ vitamin E treated cows. Milk from untreated cows fed barley silage contained a higher proportion of linoleic acid than that from treated cows or from those on o a t silage. The incidence of nutritional muscular dystrophy was associated closely with ingestion by the calves of an increased amount of dietary dienoic acid. It appears an advantage to include oat silage in winter feeding programs for beef cows to reduce the risk of development of nutritional muscular dystrophy in the offspring.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
INTRODUCTION
Nutritional muscular dystrophy (NMD) resulting from selenium/vitamin E deficiency is a prevalent disease in young ruminants raised in northern Ontario. Typically, crops grown in the area contain little selenium (Se), and the
Received July 18, 1977. Contribution No. 712. 1977 J Dairy Sci 60:1905-1909
Sixteen pregnant Shorthorn cows which had been winter-fed either oat or barley silages ad libitum were allotted 2 mo before calving to four equally sized groups: Group 1, oat silage; Group 2, oat silage, vitamin E and Se; Group 3, barley silage; and Group 4, barley silage, vitamin E and Se. Animals in Groups 2 and 4 were injected intramuscularly with 10 ml Dystosel (30 mg selenium and 1360 1U vitamin E; Rojar/STB, Box 2004, London, Ontario) during their 7th and 8th mo of gestation, at calving, and 1 mo postpartum. All animals were wintered in a pole barn and had free access to a mixture of 40% steamed bone meal and 60% cobaltized and iodized salt. The calves were raised with their dams. Milk samples were taken from all cows on days 1 to 8 and at 14, 21, 28, 40, and 50 days after calving for lipid fatty acid determinations. The milk samples (100 to 150 ml) were taken in the morning directly into plastic containers
I905
1906
HIDIROGLOU ET AL.
and were a composite of the strippings from the four quarters. Blood was obtained from the jugular vein of the calves at 7, 14, 21, 28, 40, and 50 days of age. Since all the deaths due to NMD in this experiment occurred when the calves were less than 2 mo old, the serum glutamic oxalacetate transaminase (SGOT) activity in calves and the fatty acid concentrations in milk fat were determined during this period only. The SGOT to indicate NMD were determined by the method of Rietman and Frankel (14). Pathological examination of the dead calves and laboratory techniques for determination of selenium in the roughage fed to dams were similar to those detailed in (7). The lipids were extracted from the milk and plant material with chloroform:methanol (22:1, vol/vol), and converted to methyl esters by transmethylation according to Morrison and Smith (11). The chloroform:methanol extract of the plant material was purified by the Folch et al. (4) method before transmethylation. The methyl esters were extracted in chloroform and were analyzed by gas-liquid chromatography with an Aerograph HY-F1 Model 600 with hydrogenflame detector. The stainless steel column was packed with chromosorb G (80/100 mesh) as the solid phase and butanediol succinate with chloroform as the liquid phase. The column was held at 210 C. A digital integrator Kent-Chrommolog 2 was used to measure the areas under t h e peaks. The results are expressed as percentage contribution of the fatty acid methyl esters to the total area of all peaks. The individual esters were identified by carbon number, internal standards, and comparison with published results. The data were subjected to analysis of variance (17).
RESULTS
The Se content for barley and oat silages averaged 23 and 39 ng/g dry matter (DM). Both these concentrations were well below the 100 ng/g DM feed over which NMD promotion is rare (10). The extraction of barley and oat silages with chloroform:methanol yielded a similar quantity of lipid, varying between 2.5 and 3.0% of the silage DM. The main difference in lipid fatty acid composition between oat and barley silages was that oat silage contained less linoleic (22.3 vs. 33.2%) and palmitic (23.1 vs. 32.3%) acids and barley silage but more oleic (22.1 vs. 6.3%) and linolenic (30.9 vs. 20.9%) acids (Table 1). Only one calf from each subgroup on the oat silage diet showed a SGOT of more than 200 Frankel units (FU), which is indicative of NMD (Table 2). This occurred in the calf born to a cow treated with vitamin E and Se at the 14-day sampling and in that born to an untreated cow at 21 and 40 days old. The SGOT activity in all calves born to the cows treated with vitamin E and Se fed barley silage was less than 200 FU. In the calves born to untreated cows on this diet, high SGOT activity was recorded as early as the 7th day, while at the 40th and 50th day the activity was more than 200 FU in all surviving calves of this group. Three calves born to the untreated cows fed barley silage died from NMD between 40 and 50 days of age. Necropsy indicated that the histological lesions were similar to those described by Hidiroglou et al. (7). First-day cotostrum from cows fed oat silage contained more oleic (P<.01) and less myristic (P<.01) and palmitic (P<.05) acids in the lipid than did colostrum from cows fed barley silage (Table 3). No difference was significant in any
TABLE 1. Fatty acid composition of oil extracted from silages. Barley silage
Oat silage Fatty acid
Mean
SE
Mean
SE
(% of total fatty acids) Palmitic (C 16:0) Stearic (C 18:0) Oleic (C 18:1) Linoleic (C 18:2) Linolenic (C 18:3)
23.1 1.6 22.1 22.3 30.9
Journal of Dairy Science Vol. 60, No. 12, 1977
3.8 .6 2.1 2.3 2.4
32.3 7.3 6.3 33.2 20.9
1.3 .8 1.2 1.8 2.3
M Y O P A T H Y FROM COWS ON B A R L E Y A N D O A T SILAGES
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fatty acid of the colostrum within diets whether or not the cows were treated with vitamin E and Se. In colostrum, the concentration of the C1 6 series acids had a tendency to be higher than in milk whereas the inverse trend was recorded for stearic and oleic acids (Table 4). The concentrations of the other acids fluctuated during lactation. Throughout the experiment the amount of linoleic acid in colostrum, as well as in milk, tended to be greater in the untreated than in the treated cows. This difference was statistically significant (P<.05) in the milk of untreated cows on barley silage compared to other treatments (Table 4). es
E DISCUSSION
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No deaths as a result of NMD were recorded in calves born to the untreated cows on oat silage, while three out of four died in those born to the untreated cows on barley silage• The cause for this difference in NMD deaths may have been due to the lower Se in the barley silage. However, this appears highly unlikely as both silages had low Se. Differences other than Se in diets of pregnant cows have been important in the development of NMD in the calves. Dunkley et al. (3) observed that oxidative stability of milk was greater in cows fed oat silage than in those fed alfalfa silage, an effect attributed to a higher concentration of conjugated dienoic acids in milk from alfalfa-fed cows. Similar differences in the amounts of polyunsaturated fatty acids in milk from cows fed various roughages also were reported by Stobbs and Brett (18). Hydrogenation of unsaturated lipids occurs in the rumen but is not complete (8). In the present experiment, there was much higher linoleic acid in barley than oat silage and, accordingly, more linoleic acid in the milk from the cows fed barley silage. As linoleic acid promoted development of NMD (2, 9), the higher incidence of dystrophy in the calves of barley-fed cows may have resulted from the increased ingestion of linoleic acid via the milk lipids. Poukka (13) has shown that tissues of calves affected by NMD have higher concentrations of linoleic acid than those of unaffected tissues. More linolenic acid was in lipids of oat silage than in barley silage• This fatty acid possibly could have had an antidystrophogenic effect in Journal o f Dairy Science Vol. 60, No. 12, 1 9 7 7
1908
HIDIROGLOU ET AL.
TABLE 3. Effect of feeding cows oat or barley silage on the fatty acid composition of their colostrum lipid.
Oat silage
Fatty acid
Barley silage
Significance of differences
SE
(% of total fatty acids) Lauric (C 12:0) Myristic (C 14:0) Palmitic (C 16:0) Palmitoleic (C 16:1) Stearic (C 18:0) Oleic (C 18:1) Linoleic (C 18:2)
1.32 8.65 33.77 7.11 9.42 36.88 3.06
1.68 11.04 37.74 7.13 7.58 31.12 3.67
.202 .762 1.499
NS ** * NS NS ** NS
.693
.928 1.377 .829
*(P<.05), **(P<.01); NS, not significant (P>.05).
TABLE 4. Effect of feeding cows oat or barley silage and of selenium + vitamin E administration on the fatty acid composition of the milk lipid.
Fatty acid
Oat silage
Oat silage + Se + vit. E
Barley silage
Barley silage + Se + vit. E
SE
Significance of differences
2.57 10.82 30.25 5.42 12.11 35.86 2.06 a
.189 .433 .460 .200 .533 .948 .143
NS NS NS NS NS NS *
(% of total fatty acids) Lauric (C 12:0) Myristic (C 14:0) Palmitic (C 16:0) Palmitoleic (C 16:1) Stearic (C 18:0) Oleic (C 18:1) Linoleic (C 18:2)
1.76 8.83 28.94 5.31 11.22 40.98 2.96 a
2.30 9.41 29.98 5,93 11.18 39.76 2.44 a
2.07 8.73 29.36 6.05 10.13 39.65 4.01 b
a'bvalues with different superscripts within the same row differ significantly (P<.05). NS, not significant (P<.05); *(P<.05).
t h e p r e s e n t study. O k s a n e n (12) has s h o w n t h a t in F i n l a n d , h a y s w h i c h d o n o t p r o m o t e N M D c o n t a i n m o r e of this f a t t y acid t h a n dystrop h o g e n i c hays. A t h i r d f a c t o r t h a t m a y have p r o t e c t e d the offspring f r o m oat silage-fed d a m s is t h e relatively high n a t u r a l a n t i o x i d a n t s in oats (1). T h e p r e s e n t w o r k c o n f i r m s o b s e r v a t i o n s (5) t h a t n u t r i t i o n a l m y o p a t h y rarely o c c u r s in calves f r o m cows fed o a t s i l a g e l o w in Se c o n t e n t . In n o r t h e r n O n t a r i o , it a p p e a r s an a d v a n t a g e w h e n cereal silage m a k e s up a high p r o p o r t i o n o f t h e feed p r o v i d e d to p r e g n a n t b e e f cows d u r i n g w i n t e r a n d early spring, to feed o a t silage as a m e a n s of r e d u c i n g t h e risk of NMD d e v e l o p m e n t in t h e offspring. Journal of Dairy Science Vol. 60, No. 12, 1977
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
A p p r e c i a t i o n is e x p r e s s e d t o P. Jui, Statistical R e s e a r c h Services; R. B. A n d e r s o n , Chemistry a n d Biology R e s e a r c h I n s t i t u t e ; a n d t h e p e r s o n n e l at t h e K a p u s k a s i n g E x p e r i m e n t a l F a r m for t h e i r assistance in this investigation. REFERENCES
1 Daniels, D. G. H., and H. F. Martin. 1967. Antioxidants in oats: Monoesters of caffeic and ferulic acids. J. Sci. Fd. Agr. 18: 589. 2 Draper, H. H., M. J. James, and B. C. Johnson. 1952. Tri-o-cresyl phosphate as a vitamin E antagonist for the rat and lamb. J. Nutr. 47: 583. 3 Dun!dey, W. L., L. M. Smith, and M. Ronning. 1960. Influence of alfalfa and oat hays on susceptibility of milk to oxidized flavor. J. Dairy Sci.
MYOPATHY FROM COWS ON BARLEY AND OAT SILAGES 43:1766. 4 Folch, T., M. Lees, and G. H. Sloan-Stanley. 1957. A simple method for the isolation and purification of total lipids from animal tissues. J. Biol. Chem. 226:497. 5 Hidiroglou, M., R. B. Carson, and G. S. Brossard. 1968. Problems associated with selenium deficiency in beef calves. Can. J. Physiol. Pharmacol. 46:854. 6 Hidirog|ou, M., and K. J. Jenkins. 1968. Factors affecting the development of nutritional muscular dystrophy in northern Ontario. Can. J. Anita. Sci. 48:7. 7 Hidiroglou, M., J. M. Wauthy, and J. E. Proulx. 1976. Activite vitaminique E des fourages conserves et incidence de la myopathie des veaux. Ann. Rech. Veter. 7:(2)185. 8 Hilditch, T. P., and P. M. Williams. 1964. The Chemical Constitution of Natural Fat. 4th ed., Chapman and Hall Ltd., London. 9 Hutcheson, L. M., D. C. Hill, and K. J. Jenkins. 1963. Influence of dietary fat on the efficacy o f agents protecting against muscular dystrophy in the chick. Poult. Sci. 42: 846. 10 Jenkins, K. J., and M. Hidiroglou. 1972. A review of selenium/vitamin E responsive problems in livestock: A case for selenium as a feed additive in Canada. Can. J. Anim. Sci. 52: 591. 11 Morrison, W. R., and L. M. Smith. 1964. Prepara-
1909
tion of fatty acid methyl esters and dimethylacetals from lipids with boron fluoride-methanol. J. Lipid Res. 5:600. 12 Oksanen, H. E. 1965. Studies on nutritional muscular degeneration (NMD) in ruminants. D.V.M. Thesis, College of Veterinary Medicine, Helsinki, Finland. 13 Poukka, E. R. 1966. Tissue lipids in calves suffering from muscular dystrophy. Br. J. Nutr. 20:245. 14 Reitman, S., and S. Frankel. 1957. A colorimetric method for the determination of serum glutamic oxalacetic and glutamic pyruvic transaminase. Amer. J. Clin. Path. 28:56. 15 Schingoethe, D. J., H. H. Voelker, G. L. Beardsley, and J. G. Parsons. 1976. Rumen volatile fatty acids and milk composition from cows fed hay, haylage, or urea-treated corn silage. J. Dairy Sci. 59: 894. 16 Smith, L. M., and M. Ronning. 1961. A comparison of fatty acid composition of milk fats produced by cows fed alfalfa, oat, or ground, pelleted alfalfa hay. J. Dairy Sci. 44:1170 (Abstr.). 17 Steel, R. G. D., and J. G. Torrie. 1960. Principles and Procedures of Statistics. McGraw-Hill, New York. 18 Stobbs, T. H., and D. J. Brett. 1976. Short-term effects of level of dry matter intake upon milk yield, fatty acid composition of milk fat and some blood constituents of Hereford cows. Aust. J. Agr. Res. 27:175.
Journal of Dairy Science Vol. 60, No. 12, 1977
disorder develops in suckling calves where the dams are fed diets mostly of local feedstuffs (6, 7). Recently it has become common in northern Ontario to use cereal silage as the only roughage for beef cattle during the winter. Several reports (15, 16) have indicated that the type of roughage consumed by beef cows can affect the fatty acid composition of the milk lipids. F a t t y acid composition of dietary lipids can affect markedly the development of dystrophy (2, 9). As the diet of the suckling calf is mainly milk during the period when it is most susceptible to NMD, the maternal roughage feeding program might have an important influence on development of the disorder. This work describes the effect of winterfeeding barley silage or oat silage to beef cows on the fatty acid composition of the milk fat and on the occurrence of NMD in the suckling calyes.
Sixteen pregnant Shorthorn cows were winter-fed either oat or barley silage, both of which were low in selenium (<.1 ppm). Two months before calving, as well as at calving and a month later, four cows on each diet were given intramuscularly a preparation containing 1360 IU of vitamin E and 30 mg selenium as sodium selenite. Barley silage lipids contained higher linoleic (33.2 versus 22.3%) and palmitic acids (32.3 versus 23.1%), and lower oleic (6.3 versus 22.1%)and linolenic acids (20.9 versus 30.9%) than oat silage. Three calves born from the untreated dams on barley silage died from nutritional muscular dystrophy by 50 days of age whereas none of the calves died either from the untreated cows on oat silage or from any of the selenium/ vitamin E treated cows. Milk from untreated cows fed barley silage contained a higher proportion of linoleic acid than that from treated cows or from those on o a t silage. The incidence of nutritional muscular dystrophy was associated closely with ingestion by the calves of an increased amount of dietary dienoic acid. It appears an advantage to include oat silage in winter feeding programs for beef cows to reduce the risk of development of nutritional muscular dystrophy in the offspring.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
INTRODUCTION
Nutritional muscular dystrophy (NMD) resulting from selenium/vitamin E deficiency is a prevalent disease in young ruminants raised in northern Ontario. Typically, crops grown in the area contain little selenium (Se), and the
Received July 18, 1977. Contribution No. 712. 1977 J Dairy Sci 60:1905-1909
Sixteen pregnant Shorthorn cows which had been winter-fed either oat or barley silages ad libitum were allotted 2 mo before calving to four equally sized groups: Group 1, oat silage; Group 2, oat silage, vitamin E and Se; Group 3, barley silage; and Group 4, barley silage, vitamin E and Se. Animals in Groups 2 and 4 were injected intramuscularly with 10 ml Dystosel (30 mg selenium and 1360 1U vitamin E; Rojar/STB, Box 2004, London, Ontario) during their 7th and 8th mo of gestation, at calving, and 1 mo postpartum. All animals were wintered in a pole barn and had free access to a mixture of 40% steamed bone meal and 60% cobaltized and iodized salt. The calves were raised with their dams. Milk samples were taken from all cows on days 1 to 8 and at 14, 21, 28, 40, and 50 days after calving for lipid fatty acid determinations. The milk samples (100 to 150 ml) were taken in the morning directly into plastic containers
I905
1906
HIDIROGLOU ET AL.
and were a composite of the strippings from the four quarters. Blood was obtained from the jugular vein of the calves at 7, 14, 21, 28, 40, and 50 days of age. Since all the deaths due to NMD in this experiment occurred when the calves were less than 2 mo old, the serum glutamic oxalacetate transaminase (SGOT) activity in calves and the fatty acid concentrations in milk fat were determined during this period only. The SGOT to indicate NMD were determined by the method of Rietman and Frankel (14). Pathological examination of the dead calves and laboratory techniques for determination of selenium in the roughage fed to dams were similar to those detailed in (7). The lipids were extracted from the milk and plant material with chloroform:methanol (22:1, vol/vol), and converted to methyl esters by transmethylation according to Morrison and Smith (11). The chloroform:methanol extract of the plant material was purified by the Folch et al. (4) method before transmethylation. The methyl esters were extracted in chloroform and were analyzed by gas-liquid chromatography with an Aerograph HY-F1 Model 600 with hydrogenflame detector. The stainless steel column was packed with chromosorb G (80/100 mesh) as the solid phase and butanediol succinate with chloroform as the liquid phase. The column was held at 210 C. A digital integrator Kent-Chrommolog 2 was used to measure the areas under t h e peaks. The results are expressed as percentage contribution of the fatty acid methyl esters to the total area of all peaks. The individual esters were identified by carbon number, internal standards, and comparison with published results. The data were subjected to analysis of variance (17).
RESULTS
The Se content for barley and oat silages averaged 23 and 39 ng/g dry matter (DM). Both these concentrations were well below the 100 ng/g DM feed over which NMD promotion is rare (10). The extraction of barley and oat silages with chloroform:methanol yielded a similar quantity of lipid, varying between 2.5 and 3.0% of the silage DM. The main difference in lipid fatty acid composition between oat and barley silages was that oat silage contained less linoleic (22.3 vs. 33.2%) and palmitic (23.1 vs. 32.3%) acids and barley silage but more oleic (22.1 vs. 6.3%) and linolenic (30.9 vs. 20.9%) acids (Table 1). Only one calf from each subgroup on the oat silage diet showed a SGOT of more than 200 Frankel units (FU), which is indicative of NMD (Table 2). This occurred in the calf born to a cow treated with vitamin E and Se at the 14-day sampling and in that born to an untreated cow at 21 and 40 days old. The SGOT activity in all calves born to the cows treated with vitamin E and Se fed barley silage was less than 200 FU. In the calves born to untreated cows on this diet, high SGOT activity was recorded as early as the 7th day, while at the 40th and 50th day the activity was more than 200 FU in all surviving calves of this group. Three calves born to the untreated cows fed barley silage died from NMD between 40 and 50 days of age. Necropsy indicated that the histological lesions were similar to those described by Hidiroglou et al. (7). First-day cotostrum from cows fed oat silage contained more oleic (P<.01) and less myristic (P<.01) and palmitic (P<.05) acids in the lipid than did colostrum from cows fed barley silage (Table 3). No difference was significant in any
TABLE 1. Fatty acid composition of oil extracted from silages. Barley silage
Oat silage Fatty acid
Mean
SE
Mean
SE
(% of total fatty acids) Palmitic (C 16:0) Stearic (C 18:0) Oleic (C 18:1) Linoleic (C 18:2) Linolenic (C 18:3)
23.1 1.6 22.1 22.3 30.9
Journal of Dairy Science Vol. 60, No. 12, 1977
3.8 .6 2.1 2.3 2.4
32.3 7.3 6.3 33.2 20.9
1.3 .8 1.2 1.8 2.3
M Y O P A T H Y FROM COWS ON B A R L E Y A N D O A T SILAGES
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1907
fatty acid of the colostrum within diets whether or not the cows were treated with vitamin E and Se. In colostrum, the concentration of the C1 6 series acids had a tendency to be higher than in milk whereas the inverse trend was recorded for stearic and oleic acids (Table 4). The concentrations of the other acids fluctuated during lactation. Throughout the experiment the amount of linoleic acid in colostrum, as well as in milk, tended to be greater in the untreated than in the treated cows. This difference was statistically significant (P<.05) in the milk of untreated cows on barley silage compared to other treatments (Table 4). es
E DISCUSSION
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No deaths as a result of NMD were recorded in calves born to the untreated cows on oat silage, while three out of four died in those born to the untreated cows on barley silage• The cause for this difference in NMD deaths may have been due to the lower Se in the barley silage. However, this appears highly unlikely as both silages had low Se. Differences other than Se in diets of pregnant cows have been important in the development of NMD in the calves. Dunkley et al. (3) observed that oxidative stability of milk was greater in cows fed oat silage than in those fed alfalfa silage, an effect attributed to a higher concentration of conjugated dienoic acids in milk from alfalfa-fed cows. Similar differences in the amounts of polyunsaturated fatty acids in milk from cows fed various roughages also were reported by Stobbs and Brett (18). Hydrogenation of unsaturated lipids occurs in the rumen but is not complete (8). In the present experiment, there was much higher linoleic acid in barley than oat silage and, accordingly, more linoleic acid in the milk from the cows fed barley silage. As linoleic acid promoted development of NMD (2, 9), the higher incidence of dystrophy in the calves of barley-fed cows may have resulted from the increased ingestion of linoleic acid via the milk lipids. Poukka (13) has shown that tissues of calves affected by NMD have higher concentrations of linoleic acid than those of unaffected tissues. More linolenic acid was in lipids of oat silage than in barley silage• This fatty acid possibly could have had an antidystrophogenic effect in Journal o f Dairy Science Vol. 60, No. 12, 1 9 7 7
1908
HIDIROGLOU ET AL.
TABLE 3. Effect of feeding cows oat or barley silage on the fatty acid composition of their colostrum lipid.
Oat silage
Fatty acid
Barley silage
Significance of differences
SE
(% of total fatty acids) Lauric (C 12:0) Myristic (C 14:0) Palmitic (C 16:0) Palmitoleic (C 16:1) Stearic (C 18:0) Oleic (C 18:1) Linoleic (C 18:2)
1.32 8.65 33.77 7.11 9.42 36.88 3.06
1.68 11.04 37.74 7.13 7.58 31.12 3.67
.202 .762 1.499
NS ** * NS NS ** NS
.693
.928 1.377 .829
*(P<.05), **(P<.01); NS, not significant (P>.05).
TABLE 4. Effect of feeding cows oat or barley silage and of selenium + vitamin E administration on the fatty acid composition of the milk lipid.
Fatty acid
Oat silage
Oat silage + Se + vit. E
Barley silage
Barley silage + Se + vit. E
SE
Significance of differences
2.57 10.82 30.25 5.42 12.11 35.86 2.06 a
.189 .433 .460 .200 .533 .948 .143
NS NS NS NS NS NS *
(% of total fatty acids) Lauric (C 12:0) Myristic (C 14:0) Palmitic (C 16:0) Palmitoleic (C 16:1) Stearic (C 18:0) Oleic (C 18:1) Linoleic (C 18:2)
1.76 8.83 28.94 5.31 11.22 40.98 2.96 a
2.30 9.41 29.98 5,93 11.18 39.76 2.44 a
2.07 8.73 29.36 6.05 10.13 39.65 4.01 b
a'bvalues with different superscripts within the same row differ significantly (P<.05). NS, not significant (P<.05); *(P<.05).
t h e p r e s e n t study. O k s a n e n (12) has s h o w n t h a t in F i n l a n d , h a y s w h i c h d o n o t p r o m o t e N M D c o n t a i n m o r e of this f a t t y acid t h a n dystrop h o g e n i c hays. A t h i r d f a c t o r t h a t m a y have p r o t e c t e d the offspring f r o m oat silage-fed d a m s is t h e relatively high n a t u r a l a n t i o x i d a n t s in oats (1). T h e p r e s e n t w o r k c o n f i r m s o b s e r v a t i o n s (5) t h a t n u t r i t i o n a l m y o p a t h y rarely o c c u r s in calves f r o m cows fed o a t s i l a g e l o w in Se c o n t e n t . In n o r t h e r n O n t a r i o , it a p p e a r s an a d v a n t a g e w h e n cereal silage m a k e s up a high p r o p o r t i o n o f t h e feed p r o v i d e d to p r e g n a n t b e e f cows d u r i n g w i n t e r a n d early spring, to feed o a t silage as a m e a n s of r e d u c i n g t h e risk of NMD d e v e l o p m e n t in t h e offspring. Journal of Dairy Science Vol. 60, No. 12, 1977
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
A p p r e c i a t i o n is e x p r e s s e d t o P. Jui, Statistical R e s e a r c h Services; R. B. A n d e r s o n , Chemistry a n d Biology R e s e a r c h I n s t i t u t e ; a n d t h e p e r s o n n e l at t h e K a p u s k a s i n g E x p e r i m e n t a l F a r m for t h e i r assistance in this investigation. REFERENCES
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Journal of Dairy Science Vol. 60, No. 12, 1977