Enhancing lactation performance and energy utilisation efficiency through dietary inclusion of apple pomace silage and hempseed cake in dairy cows

作者：Benchu Xue, T Yan, Sokratis Stergiadis, Xianjiang Chen, Omar Cristobal-Carballo, Laurence Smith, Katerina Theodoridou · 发表于：Animal nutrition · 年份：2026 · DOI：10.1016/j.aninu.2026.01.005 · 被引用次数：1 · 研究领域：Ruminant Nutrition and Digestive Physiology、Animal health and immunology、Reproductive Physiology in Livestock

Apple pomace (AP) and hempseed cake (HC) are used for replacing conventional feed ingredients in dairy farming, but their effects on energy partitioning remains insufficiently explored. This study investigated the effects of dietary inclusion of AP silage and HC to mid-lactation dairy cows on lactation performance and energy utilisation efficiency. Fifteen dairy cows (133 ± 2.6 d in milk, 637 ± 13.1 body weight, 2.4 ± 0.28 parities) were used in a 3 (treatments) × 3 (periods) Latin square design study with three treatments and three periods (24 d/period). Treatment diets included (dry matter [DM] basis) control (CON, basal diet containing 50.0% concentrates, 45.7% grass silage and 4.3% barley straw), AP (10% of AP replaced grass silage in the CON diet), and HC diets (10% of HC replaced concentrates in the CON diet). Dietary inclusion of AP or HC significantly increased DM intake (DMI) by 6.7% and 3.4% ( P = 0.001), milk yield by 8.8% and 11.3% ( P < 0.001), respectively, compared with the CON. Milk yield/DMI was the highest in the HC group, followed by the AP and CON groups ( P = 0.022). Crude protein digestibility was higher in the AP group than in the CON group ( P = 0.038). When compared with the CON, both AP and HC tended to increase rumen propionate production ( P = 0.082) and significantly decreased rumen acetate-to-propionate ratio ( P = 0.040). Urinary and methane energy outputs and heat production as a proportion of gross energy (GE) intake significantly decreased wh...