IMPACT OF INULIN ON CALVES’ GROWTH AND POSSIBLE REDUCTION OF GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSION

Abstract

To reduce greenhouse gas emission (GGE) researchers propose to shorten theperiod of breeding calves of dairy breeds (Mirzaei-Aghsaghali et al., 2015, Fao,2010). However, producers try to prolong the time of rising animals in order to getmore valuable production. The aim of this research was to determine the impact ofdifferent dosages of inulin concentrate (50%) produced in Latvia by using specialtechnologies on calves’ health, amount of obtained production and to evaluatepossible reduction of GGE. Research has been supported by the National researchprogramme AgroBioRes (2014-2017).Four week old clinically healthy HolsteinFriesian calves which were kept in barn in individual cages were included in thisresearch. Ten were in control group (CoG) and thirty were fed with additional floursupplement (groups: Pre6 (n=10), Pre12 (n=10), Pre24 (n=10)) until the groups’median weight was above 90kg. We found out that inulin supplement reduced thecases of diarrhoea especially in Pre12 (P=95%) less than in CoG. Also, the overallhealth condition in Pre12 was the most stable. The best rate of live weight showedcalves from Pre12 and Pre24, the desired weight was exceeded on 42nd test day(median increase rate respectively 0.85 kg/day and 0.95 kg/day). Pre6 reached thatgoal on day 56 (0.76 kg/day), CoG only on 70 (0.55 kg/day). Conclusion: theoptimal dose of that supplement for speeding up the growth rate is 12g which canstabilize the health and reduce breeding time. Besides shortening breeding timeminimum to 3 weeks (i.e. 17%), GGE can be reduced too.