Investigation of ammonium lactate supplementation on fermentation end products and bacterial assimilation of nitrogen in dual-flow continuous culture.

Supplements investigated throughout the present study are produced by fermenting lactose that is present in whey to lactate, yielding products differing in ammonium relative to lactate concentrations and in physical form (liquid or dry). Trials 1 and 2 investigated Lacto-Whey (LW; Fermented Nutrition Corp., Luxemburg, WI) and GlucoBoost (GB; Fermented Nutrition Corp.), respectively, using dual-flow continuous culture systems (n = 4), each with a 4 × 4 Latin square design. A greater proportion of nonprotein nitrogen was present in GB than in LW. In trial 1, the treatment with LW was isonitrogenously dosed against soybean meal (SBM) as a control (no LW) and factorialized with either a wheat- or corn-based concentrate (55% inclusion rate, dry matter basis). We hypothesized that LW would increase propionate production and that the combination of +LW with wheat would increase bacterial assimilation of NH3-N into cellular N. No differences were observed for total volatile fatty acid (VFA) production per day. However, treatment × time interactions revealed that +LW increased lactate concentration at 0, 0.5, and 1 h and tended to increase molar percentage of propionate at 1 and 1.5 h postfeeding, documenting the immediate availability of lactate converted to propionate in the +LW treatments. The main effect of corn increased the proportion of bacterial N derived from NH3-N. Trial 2 was designed to investigate GB; isonitrogenous treatments included an SBM control, crystal GB, liquid GB (LGB), and LGB with yeast culture, which were dosed twice daily. We hypothesized that GB would increase propionate production and bacterial assimilation of NH3-N; the combination of LGB and yeast culture was expected to have a positive additive effect, yielding the greatest VFA production and bacterial NH3-N assimilation. No differences were observed for total VFA production; however, LGB decreased molar percentage of acetate and increased propionate and butyrate molar percentages. There were no differences in non-NH3-N flow or microbial N flow. Under the conditions of our studies, lactate in LW and GB was fermented extensively to propionate, and microbial protein synthesis in these treatments was comparable with that in SBM controls.

A meta-analysis of the effects of feeding yeast culture produced by anaerobic fermentation of Saccharomyces cerevisiae on milk production of lactating dairy cows.

The purpose of this study was to use meta-analytic methods to estimate the effect of a commercially available yeast culture product on milk production and other production measures in lactating dairy cows using a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. Sixty-one research publications (published journal articles, published abstracts, and technical reports) were identified through a review of literature provided by the manufacturer and a search of published literature using 6 search engines. Thirty-six separate studies with 69 comparisons met the criteria for inclusion in the meta-analysis. The fixed-effect meta-analysis showed substantial heterogeneity for milk yield, energy-corrected milk, 3.5% fat-corrected milk, milk fat yield, and milk protein yield. Sub-group analysis of the data showed much less heterogeneity in peer-reviewed studies versus non-peer-reviewed abstracts and technical reports, and tended to show higher, but not significantly different, treatment effects. A random-effects meta-analysis showed estimated raw mean differences between treated and untreated cattle reported in peer-reviewed publications of 1.18 kg/d [95% confidence interval (CI): 0.55 to 1.81], 1.61 kg/d (95% CI: 0.92 to 2.29), and 1.65 kg/d (95% CI: 0.97 to 2.34) for milk yield, 3.5% fat-corrected milk, and energy-corrected milk, respectively. Milk fat yield and milk protein yield for peer-reviewed studies showed an increase in the raw mean difference of 0.06 kg/d (95% CI: 0.01 to 0.10) and 0.03 kg/d (95% CI: 0.00 to 0.05), respectively. Estimated raw mean dry matter intake of the peer-reviewed studies during early lactation (<70 d in milk) and not-early lactation were 0.62 kg/d (95% CI: 0.21 to 1.02) and a decrease of 0.78 kg/d (95% CI: -1.36 to -0.21), respectively. These findings provide strong evidence that this commercially available yeast culture product provides significant improvement in several important milk production outcomes as evaluated in production settings typical for commercial dairies in North America. Utilizing meta-analytic methods to study the complete breadth of information relating to a specific treatment by studying multiple overcomes of all eligible studies can reduce the uncertainty often seen in small individual studies designed without sufficient power to detect differences in treatments.