Impact of a Ration Negative in Dietary Cation–Anion Difference and Varying Calcium Supply Fed before Calving on Colostrum Quality of the Dams and Health Status and Growth Performance of the Calves
, Gholam Reza Ghorbani 1, Mohammad Khorvash 1, Ali Sadeghi-Sefidmazgi 1, Amir Hossein Mahdavi 1, Saman Rashidi 1, Mirja Rosmarie Wilkens 2,* and Martin Hünerberg 3Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments to Authors
This study showed that: 1) Feeding low DCAD or Ca restricted during the close-up phase did not change the colostrum quantity or composition, while cows fed low Ca tended to produce more colostrum compared to dams fed high Ca before calving; 2) Feeding low DCAD to prepartum cows increased the likelihood of diarrhea and serum K concentrations of their calves before weaning; 2) Calves born to dams fed low DCAD during close-up also had lower BW and ADG during the first two wk and tended to have lower BW before weaning compared calves from cows fed high Ca and low Ca; 3) The delay in the growth development observed in calves born to dams fed low DCAD was compensated after weaning (d 55 to 70).
Authors are kindly requested to emphasize the current concepts about these issues in the context of recent knowledge and the available literature. This articles should be quoted in the References list.
References
- Lowering dietary cation-anion difference increases sow blood and milk calcium concentrations. J Anim Sci. 2019;97(7):2927-2939. doi:10.1093/jas/skz146.
- Colostrum and milk performance, and blood immunity indices and minerals of Holstein cows receiving organic Mn, Zn and Cu sources. Anim Nutr. 2020;6(1):61-68. doi:10.1016/j.aninu.2019.08.003.
- Effect of extrusion of soybean meal on feed spectroscopic molecular structures and on performance, blood metabolites and nutrient digestibility of Holstein dairy calves [published online ahead of print, 2020 Mar 4]. Asian-Australas J Anim Sci. 2020;10.5713/ajas.19.0899. doi:10.5713/ajas.19.0899.
Author Response
Thank you for your time and your interesting suggestions. We have added the first two articles. We have not included the third one – it is an interesting paper, however, with exception of colostrum from the individual dams, all of the calves in our study received the same diets. As the analyses of the colostrum were only the commonly used ones, we didn´t want to speculate about potential structural effects of the dams´ diet on the colostrum.
Reviewer 2 Report
In the text.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
Thank you for thoroughly reading our manuscript. We have considered nearly all your suggestions. If not - please see the respective comments in the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
