Effects of probiotic and prebiotic combination on growth performance, some blood parameters, digestibility and immunity of suckling calves

Introduction and Objective: Calves are often affected by digestive problems and respiratory diseases. Accordingly, in recent years, producers are looking for ways to improve the performance, increase the efficiency of the immune system and the health of the digestive system of newborn calves. One of these methods is using feed additives to create optimal conditions in the digestive system and maintain the health of the digestive system. Antibiotic growth promoters have been banned in many countries due to their residues in livestock products and the possibility of bacterial resistance. Probiotics, prebiotics, yeast cell components, ascorbic acid, and animal plasma are substitutes for antibiotic growth stimulants. Although the performance of probiotics, prebiotics, and their synergistic effects have been discussed in previous research, considering the importance of the health of the digestive system of newborn calves and the efficiency of the immune system of this group to ensure the future of the herd, it is still necessary to find the best combination between probiotics and Prebiotics are very important as an alternative to antibiotic growth promoters. The current research was conducted to investigate the effect of a combination of probiotics and dextran and mannan oligosaccharides on growth performance traits, feed intake, some blood parameters, digestibility, immunity, and health of suckling calves.
Material and Methods: To choose the best combination of probiotics with dextran oligosaccharide and mannan oligosaccharide prebiotics, 84 Holstein calves from birth to 90 days old were used in a completely randomized design in 6 experimental groups with 14 repetitions in each group. Experimental groups include: 1) control (without additive, C), 2) probiotic (P), 3) dextran oligosaccharide (DOS), 4) probiotic + dextran oligosaccharide (P+DOS), 5) mannan oligosaccharide (MOS) and 6) was probiotic + mannan oligosaccharide (P+MOS). starter intake, rectal temperature, stool score, and health score were recorded daily. Weight was measured every 15 days. Sampling of blood parameters was done on the day of birth, 60 and 90 days. On the 7th, 30th, and 60th day, stool samples were collected for microbiological tests. In 5 consecutive days at the end of the study, feed, and feces samples of calves were collected to measure digestibility.
Results: According to the results, at 30-60 and 60-90 days of age, no significant difference was observed between probiotic + dextran oligosaccharide and probiotic + mannan oligosaccharide regarding live weight trait, while the probiotic + dextran oligosaccharide group was significantly higher than the other groups (P<0.05). In all time intervals, the highest feed efficiency was related to the probiotic + dextran oligosaccharide group. Blood urea nitrogen levels after weaning significantly decreased in the groups containing probiotics compared to the control. The highest stool consistency was observed in the probiotic + dextran oligosaccharide group and the lowest was related to the control group. The number of days that the calf was involved in diarrhea in different treatments was significantly reduced in all groups compared to the control group at the age of 0-30 days. The number of lactobacilli in all three groups receiving probiotics was significantly higher than in other groups at the age of 30 and 60 days.
Conclusion: According to the results of this research, the use of synbiotics has positive effects on animal health, and the best synbiotic combination among the treatments used in this study, considering the improvement in feed efficiency in the average of the entire period, was the synbiotic group containing dextran oligosaccharide.