Table 6.
Ovarian and pregnancy variables in beef cows supplemented with Ca salts of soybean oil (CSSO) or prilled SFA source (CON) in Exp. 21,2
| Item | CSSO | CON | SEM | P value |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ovarian variables | ||||
| Largest follicle diameter (day 0), mm | 16.6 | 15.7 | 0.44 | 0.14 |
| Corpus luteum on days 7 and 15, % | 86.1 (39/45) | 92.7 (42/45) | 7.4 | 0.29 |
| Corpus luteum volume,3 cm3 | 7.11 | 7.00 | 0.35 | 0.83 |
| Plasma progesterone,3 ng/mL | 4.20 | 4.35 | 0.32 | 0.73 |
| Reproductive variables | ||||
| Estrus expression, % | 38.0 (18/45) | 38.0 (18/45) | 21.2 | 0.97 |
| Proportion of cows with conceptus,4 % | ||||
| Day 15 | 57.5 (11/20) | 39.0 (10/24) | 11.2 | 0.26 |
| Day 30 | 52.6 (12/25) | 47.4 (11/21) | 11.6 | 0.73 |
| Conceptus length,5 cm | 11.3 | 11.4 | 3.1 | 0.97 |
1CSSO = daily supplementation (per cow) with 100 g of a soybean meal + 100 g of ground corn + 100 g of Ca salts of soybean oil (Essentiom, Church and Dwight Co., Inc., Princeton, NJ); CON = daily supplementation (per cow) with 100 g of a soybean meal + 100 g of ground corn + 87 g of prilled saturated fat (Energy Booster 100, Milk Specialties, Eden Prairie, MN) + 13 g of limestone. Treatments were offered from day 0 (timed AI) to 21 of the experiment. All results are covariately adjusted to estrus expression (Estrotect; Rockway Inc., Spring Valley, WI; Thomas et al., 2014) from day −3 to 0 of the experiment. Values within parenthesis represent number of cows with a positive response divided by number total cows within each treatment.
2Transrectal ultrasonography (7.5-MHz transducer; 500 V; Aloka, Wallingford, CT) was performed on days 0, 7, and 15 of the experiment. Blood samples were collected for progesterone analysis on days 0, 7, and 15.
3Evaluated in cows without a corpus luteum on day 0, but with a corpus luteum greater than 0.38 cm3 in volume on days 7 (n = 39 for CSSO and 42 for CON) and 15. Corpus luteum volume was calculated using the formula for volume of a sphere; V = 4/3π × (D/2)3, where D is the maximum luteal diameter (Cooke et al., 2009).
4On day 15, 44 cows (CSS0, n = 20; CON, n = 24) were assigned to transcervical flushing for conceptus collection (Cipriano et al., 2016). On day 30, pregnancy status of the nonflushed cows was evaluated by measuring pregnancy-associated glycoproteins in plasma (Pohler et al., 2016).
5Evaluated from cows that had a conceptus collected via transcervical flushing.