Phytogenic Compound Supplementation to Pre-Weaning Calves: Investigation on the Effects of Growth Parameters, Blood Meta-Bolites, and Diarrhea Levels

This experiment investigated cinnamaldehyde and thymol supplementation on growth, blood meatebolites and DL as indicators of ruminal development. The hypothesis was that supplementation with thymol+cinnamaldehyde during the weaning period would increase feed efficiency in cattle and reduce the incidence of diarrhea. Thirthy-seven wea-ning period calves (18 females and 19 males) were enroled and randomly assigned to one of two treatments for 56 day: Control diet (CTRL; no thymol+cinnamaldehyde supple-mentation; n = 18) supplementation with T+C; %0.15 thymol+cinnamaldehyde; Macrovit Menoherb™ Adana, Türkiye; n = 19). In the study, the effects of treatment, gender and tre-atment x gender on weaning weight, DMI, ADG, feed conversion ratio were found to be statistically insignificant (P>0.05). While T+C application was found to be statistically in-significant on blood values of AST, GGT, Ca, P, Mg, total protein, albumin, BUN, the effect of the application on gender was found to be significant on BUN value. In diarrhea cases, T+C administration was observed to result in a decrease in diarrhea incidence and a shorter treatment duration in the treatment group compared to the control group. Based on the results, phytogenic feed additive supplements may be an effective way to improve the health of calves.