Early Life Nutrition and Its Effects on the Developing Heifer: Immune and Metabolic Responses to Immune Challenges
This experiment aimed to assess the effects of both preweaning nutrition and postweaning growth rate on the resilience of dairy heifers from birth to 20 months of age. Immune competence and metabolic characteristics were assessed via repeated vaccine immune challenges throughout early life. Heifers...
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MDPI AG
2025-05-01
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| author | Emma M. Ockenden Victoria M. Russo Brian J. Leury Khageswor Giri William J. Wales |
| author_facet | Emma M. Ockenden Victoria M. Russo Brian J. Leury Khageswor Giri William J. Wales |
| author_sort | Emma M. Ockenden |
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| description | This experiment aimed to assess the effects of both preweaning nutrition and postweaning growth rate on the resilience of dairy heifers from birth to 20 months of age. Immune competence and metabolic characteristics were assessed via repeated vaccine immune challenges throughout early life. Heifers were subject to either a high or low preweaning nutritional treatment (high: 8 L vs. low: 4 L of milk per day). Calves in these treatment groups were then equally divided into either a high or low postweaning growth rate treatment until 20 months of age. Nutritional intake, growth and metabolic data can be found in a companion paper, while the current paper outlines the responses to the three immune challenges. In the preweaning phase, heifers on a high milk volume had superior immune competence, demonstrated by higher monocyte and eosinophil counts. All other immune biomarkers were not different between treatments. By 8 months of age, the differences in monocytes were lost; however, the differences in preweaning eosinophil counts remained at 8 months and through to 13 months of age. At 13 months of age, there were also three-way interaction effects of preweaning nutrition, postweaning growth rate and vaccination for white blood cell count and neutrophil count; however, the trends in these responses appear random and do not align towards any clear advantages of pre- or postweaning nutrition. Metabolic responses to the immune challenges do not suggest any form of carryover effect from the preweaning phase and seemed to reflect the nutritional input at the time. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-ded3a85bb49e4011a54f963e8a68e1b8 |
| institution | OA Journals |
| issn | 2076-2615 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-05-01 |
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| spelling | doaj-art-ded3a85bb49e4011a54f963e8a68e1b82025-08-20T01:56:57ZengMDPI AGAnimals2076-26152025-05-011510137910.3390/ani15101379Early Life Nutrition and Its Effects on the Developing Heifer: Immune and Metabolic Responses to Immune ChallengesEmma M. Ockenden0Victoria M. Russo1Brian J. Leury2Khageswor Giri3William J. Wales4Agriculture Victoria, Ellinbank, VIC 3821, AustraliaAgriculture Victoria, Ellinbank, VIC 3821, AustraliaThe Faculty of Science, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, VIC 3010, AustraliaAgriculture Victoria, Bundoora, VIC 3083, AustraliaAgriculture Victoria, Ellinbank, VIC 3821, AustraliaThis experiment aimed to assess the effects of both preweaning nutrition and postweaning growth rate on the resilience of dairy heifers from birth to 20 months of age. Immune competence and metabolic characteristics were assessed via repeated vaccine immune challenges throughout early life. Heifers were subject to either a high or low preweaning nutritional treatment (high: 8 L vs. low: 4 L of milk per day). Calves in these treatment groups were then equally divided into either a high or low postweaning growth rate treatment until 20 months of age. Nutritional intake, growth and metabolic data can be found in a companion paper, while the current paper outlines the responses to the three immune challenges. In the preweaning phase, heifers on a high milk volume had superior immune competence, demonstrated by higher monocyte and eosinophil counts. All other immune biomarkers were not different between treatments. By 8 months of age, the differences in monocytes were lost; however, the differences in preweaning eosinophil counts remained at 8 months and through to 13 months of age. At 13 months of age, there were also three-way interaction effects of preweaning nutrition, postweaning growth rate and vaccination for white blood cell count and neutrophil count; however, the trends in these responses appear random and do not align towards any clear advantages of pre- or postweaning nutrition. Metabolic responses to the immune challenges do not suggest any form of carryover effect from the preweaning phase and seemed to reflect the nutritional input at the time.https://www.mdpi.com/2076-2615/15/10/1379immune challengeincreased milk feedingdairy calf immunitydairy heifer resilience |
| spellingShingle | Emma M. Ockenden Victoria M. Russo Brian J. Leury Khageswor Giri William J. Wales Early Life Nutrition and Its Effects on the Developing Heifer: Immune and Metabolic Responses to Immune Challenges Animals immune challenge increased milk feeding dairy calf immunity dairy heifer resilience |
| title | Early Life Nutrition and Its Effects on the Developing Heifer: Immune and Metabolic Responses to Immune Challenges |
| title_full | Early Life Nutrition and Its Effects on the Developing Heifer: Immune and Metabolic Responses to Immune Challenges |
| title_fullStr | Early Life Nutrition and Its Effects on the Developing Heifer: Immune and Metabolic Responses to Immune Challenges |
| title_full_unstemmed | Early Life Nutrition and Its Effects on the Developing Heifer: Immune and Metabolic Responses to Immune Challenges |
| title_short | Early Life Nutrition and Its Effects on the Developing Heifer: Immune and Metabolic Responses to Immune Challenges |
| title_sort | early life nutrition and its effects on the developing heifer immune and metabolic responses to immune challenges |
| topic | immune challenge increased milk feeding dairy calf immunity dairy heifer resilience |
| url | https://www.mdpi.com/2076-2615/15/10/1379 |
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