Feeding a Saccharomyces cerevisiae fermentation product improves udder health and immune response to a Streptococcus uberis mastitis challenge in mid-lactation dairy cows

Table 2 Clinical parameters in response to an intramammary inflammatory challenge with Streptococcus uberis in animal fed a control diet (CON), or a diet supplemented with a Saccharomyces cerevisiae fermentation product (NTK)

Parameter²	TRT¹		SEM	P-value
Parameter²	CON	NTK	SEM	TRT	Time	TRT×Time
Phase 2
*Systemic*
Rectal temp, °C	38.71^a	38.53^b	0.05	0.02	<.0001	0.05
Respiration rate, × min	75.73	80.24	1.93	0.11	<.0001	0.34
Heart rate, × min	27.05	25.7	1.69	0.58	0.0002	0.49
*Udder specific*
Temp, challenged quarter, °C	42.55	43.18	0.71	0.54	0.005	0.96
Temp, delta, °C	0.717	0.002	0.251	0.06	0.08	0.37
SCS, challenge quarter	3.46	2.55	0.55	0.25	<.0001	0.29
SCS, delta	1.11^a	-0.46^b	0.52	0.05	<.0001	0.20
*Circulating immune function*
Phagocytosis, monocytes, % cells	17.08^a	12.45^b	1.55	0.05	0.0005	0.01
Phagocytosis, neutrophils, % cells	20.54	19.00	1.84	0.55	0.02	0.03
Oxidative burst, monocytes, % cells	37.59	38.00	3.18	0.92	0.26	0.95
Oxidative burst, neutrophils, % cells	73.4	77.55	2.83	0.30	0.05	0.77

¹TRT Treatment, CON Control, NTK NutriTek® supplemented group (19 g/d)
²Delta values are calculated as the difference between measures in the right rear quarter (challenged with 2500 CFU of Strep. uberis) and measures in the left rear quarter (unchallenged); SCS Somatic cell score, calculated as log₂(SCC/100,000) + 3, were SCC (somatic cell count) was expressed in unit of cells per microliter
^a,bDifferent superscripts denote statistical differences between the means (P < 0.05)

ISSN: 2049-1891