Intake and performanceIntake respon

Intake and performance
Intake responses of dairy cows to yeast supplementation
have been quite variable ranging from substantial increase
(Erasmus et al., 1992; Piva et al., 1993; Dan et al., 2000) to
no change (Swartz et al., 1994; Robinson, 1997) or even a
numerical decrease (Wohlt et al., 1991; Adams et al., 1995).
When supplemental yeast culture was offered from 14 d
pre-partum to 14 d post-partum, Robinson (1997) reported
only a slight increase in DMI (0.3 kg/d) in fresh cows,
which was very similar to the results of the current trial.
Wang et al. (2001) showed that the potential of live yeast
products to increase intake of fresh cows was more affected
by total NDF concentration of the diet than by forage NDF
intake. In all the above studies, total NDF concentration of
the ration was close to that of our study. Although one
reason for selecting early lactating cows was to test the
ability of SC to increase the DMI of cows in the period
when they are prone to physical or physiological constraints
of intake, only a slight DMI increase was observed for SC
cows. Average DMI of cows (3.80% of BW) was typical for