Evaluation of Peptein in dairy cattle
Peptein (APC Europe) is a product comprising hydrolysed red blood cells that has been reported to increase the growth of Gram negative bacteria and rumen degradation of CP and NDF in vitro or in short term in situ trials, compared to other commonly-used N supplements such as peptone or urea (Aris et al. 2017). Building up from these findings, this study aimed to go a step further and evaluate the inclusion of this product in vivo and in the longer term. To achieve this, we assessed the effects of the supplementation of Peptein in dairy cows on animal performance, N utilisation, rumen microbiome and rumen fermentation parameters. Peptein had no effects on BW, DMI, milk yield and rumen fermentation. However, it increased purine derivatives concentrations in urine, as well milk solids and feed efficiency. This was coupled with some minor shifts in the rumen microbial community composition. These results show that Peptein supplementation should be considered as a N source in dairy cattle feed as it leads to significant improvements in N utilization and feed efficiency.