Evaluation of feeding different forms of therapeutic diet on the feed intake, digestibility, feed efficiency, and growth of calves experimentally infected with foot-mouth disease virus.

Oral ulcers induce acute weight loss due to anorexia in foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV) infected cattle. We hypothesized that providing a palatable form of a therapeutic diet (TD) in different physical forms would increase the feed intake, digestibility and restoration of body weight. A TD was formulated with 19% CP and 2.9 Mcal ME/kg on dry matter basis. Bull calves of 10-12 months with mean body weight of 123 ± 1.3 kg were experimentally infected with FMDV (n = 18) and offered one of the following three forms of the TD (n = 6/group) for 6 weeks post-FMDV infection (WPI): (i) TD in mash form (TDM) (ii) TD in cooked form (TDC) and (iii) TDC + customised nutrient supplement (TDCNS) such as Zn, Cu, Cr, Mn, and Se. The CNS was fed before the TDC. A group of uninfected control (n = 4) was fed TDM. Green fodder was offered in the afternoon. Dry matter intake (DMI) of TD and green fodder were recorded at 24 h interval till WPI 6. Body weight (BW) was recorded at weekly interval. Digestibility trial was conducted at WPI 6. The palatability of the TD was scored from 1- 4 and healing of tongue ulcers was analyzed by Kaplan-Meier survival curve. The results indicated that the physical form of TD increased the total DMI by WPI 3, which was supported by the restoration of BW and higher palatability score. The digestibility of all the proximate principles except EE was significantly higher (P < 0.05) in the groups that were fed TDC. It was concluded that feeding TD irrespective of the physical form, restored the ADG and DMI in the calves by WPI 3. Further, feeding cooked form of TD increased the digestibility in the FMDV infected calves and supplementation of CNS hastened the healing of glossal ulcers.

Effect of physical form of the therapeutic diet on the behaviour of crossbred calves experimentally infected with foot-and-mouth disease virus.

The oral lesions associated with foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) negatively affect animal behavior, which can adversely impact animal production and welfare. Physical form of a therapeutic diet (TD) can improve the feed intake and wellbeing during the acute phase of FMD. Accordingly, we tested the effect of two physical forms of a previously developed TD on the behavior of calves experimentally infected with FMD virus (FMDV). Crossbred Holstein Friesian male calves of 10-12 months (n = 12) were experimentally infected with a virulent strain of FMDV and were offered a TD enriched with 19% CP and 2.9 Mcal ME/kg for 11 days post-FMDV infection. One group received the TD in mash form (TDM) while the other (n = 6/group) received it in cooked form (TDC). A group of four calves served as uninfected control and were fed TDM. The time spent by the calves on certain behaviours was recorded in a pre-set form from 06:00-18:00 h for 10 days from day 2-11 post-FMDV infection. The data was divided into two sessions. Session 1 (06:00-13:00 h) represented after the offering of TD, while session 2 (13:01-18:00 h) represented the data after offering green fodder. Based on exploratory data analysis, data recorded from day 2-7 post-FMDV infection was included in the final analysis. Linear mixed model was used by fitting treatment, day and their interaction as fixed effects while calf as random effect. Orthogonal contrast was applied by comparing the infected TDM with other two groups. The results revealed that the cooked form of TD improved the ingestion time, resting time, sleeping time and licking time from day 2-7 post-FMDV infection as compared with the infected TDM group. Ingestive behaviour was better in the infected TDC than that of TDM group (p < 0.01). The sleeping time was significantly high in the infected groups as compared to the uninfected TDM group (p < 0.01) till day 6 post-FMDV infection. Daily activities such as licking, standing and resting differed significantly between the infected TDM and TDC groups in session 1, but not in session 2. Urination and defecation did not differ significantly between the infected TDM and TDC groups. It was concluded that cooked form of TD remediated the effects of infection with FMDV as evidenced by improvement in the behaviour of the calves.