Nutritional and environmental stressors and their effects on performance, metabolism, and the immune system of dairy cattle
type: CreativeWork
description: Understanding the role that stress plays on livestock health and production is of utmost importance in today’s agricultural industry. In particular, dairy cattle face many stressful conditions that have an impact on lactation performance and overall animal health. These stress-related factors not only affect cattle wellbeing, but also have a vastly negative impact on the economic state of the dairy industry. For instance, heat stress (HS) can cost the dairy industry between $900 million to $5 billion annually, while mycotoxin contamination issues can cause up to $1.7 billion in annual losses. Therefore, this research aims to provide a further understanding of the biological effects of two stressors in dairy cattle production systems, nutrition-related aflatoxin (AF) challenge and environment-related HS challenge, and help identify potential solutions that would alleviate the negative consequences of these stressors. Experiments 1 and 2 were conducted to evaluate lactation performance and inflammatory markers in multiparous, lactating Holstein cows during an AF challenge when two separate mitigation strategies were implemented: 1.) trace mineral injection, and 2.) dietary supplementation of aluminosilicate clay. In the first experiment, 58 Holstein cows were assigned to 1 of 3 treatments in a randomized complete block design: saline injection and no AF challenge (NEG), saline injection and AF challenge (POS), and trace mineral injection and AF challenge (MM). Cows in NEG had lower AF excretion in milk and greater 3.5% fat-corrected milk compared to cows in POS. Cows in POS had greater MUN and BUN than cows in MM. Liver concentrations of Se and Fe were greater for cows in MM compared to cows in POS. An upregulation of liver GPX1 was observed for cows in POS compared to cows in MM. In the second experiment, 16 multiparous, lactating, Holstein cows were assigned to 1 of 4 treatments in a replicated 4 × 4 Latin Square design with 21-d periods: no adsorbent and no AF chal…
abstract: Understanding the role that stress plays on livestock health and production is of utmost importance in today’s agricultural industry. In particular, dairy cattle face many stressful conditions that have an impact on lactation performance and overall animal health. These stress-related factors not only affect cattle wellbeing, but also have a vastly negative impact on the economic state of the dairy industry. For instance, heat stress (HS) can cost the dairy industry between $900 million to $5 billion annually, while mycotoxin contamination issues can cause up to $1.7 billion in annual losses. Therefore, this research aims to provide a further understanding of the biological effects of two stressors in dairy cattle production systems, nutrition-related aflatoxin (AF) challenge and environment-related HS challenge, and help identify potential solutions that would alleviate the negative consequences of these stressors. Experiments 1 and 2 were conducted to evaluate lactation performance and inflammatory markers in multiparous, lactating Holstein cows during an AF challenge when two separate mitigation strategies were implemented: 1.) trace mineral injection, and 2.) dietary supplementation of aluminosilicate clay. In the first experiment, 58 Holstein cows were assigned to 1 of 3 treatments in a randomized complete block design: saline injection and no AF challenge (NEG), saline injection and AF challenge (POS), and trace mineral injection and AF challenge (MM). Cows in NEG had lower AF excretion in milk and greater 3.5% fat-corrected milk compared to cows in POS. Cows in POS had greater MUN and BUN than cows in MM. Liver concentrations of Se and Fe were greater for cows in MM compared to cows in POS. An upregulation of liver GPX1 was observed for cows in POS compared to cows in MM. In the second experiment, 16 multiparous, lactating, Holstein cows were assigned to 1 of 4 treatments in a replicated 4 × 4 Latin Square design with 21-d periods: no adsorbent and no AF chal…
author: Pate, Russell T.
language: en
keywords: aflatoxin, heat stress, trace minerals, adsorbent, methionine, liver, mammary gland
date published: 2020-03-02T21:58:19Z
date modified: 2026-07-22T22:24:45Z
provider: University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

PropertyValue
property ID: Handle
value: http://hdl.handle.net/2142/106226