Effect of supplementation of betacarotene enriched mineral vitamin premix on performance of lactating crossbred sahiwal cows

Abstract

The present research work entitled Effect of supplementation of beta-carotene enriched mineral-vitamin premix on performance of lactating crossbred Sahiwal cows was carried out in the Department of Dairy Science and Food Technology, Institute of Agricultural Sciences, BHU, Varanasi. In this experiment Twenty-four disease-free lactating crossbred Sahiwal cows with a close date of calving were randomly divided into two homogeneous groups for control group (CONT; n=12) and beta-carotene group: 500 mg/cow/d (BETA; n=12) from 7 days post partum (dpp) until 105 dpp. All the cows were kept under uniform management conditions throughout the experimental period. The reference diet was formulated as per NRC standard for cow ration. The present study was carried out in order to study the effect of supplemental beta-carotene in the cow diets with an objective to study the nutrients utilization, milk yield and its components, raw milk quality and udder health status, blood biochemical profile and reproductive performance of lactating crossbred Sahiwal cows. newline