Table 4.

Effects of feeding strategy^a and M. elsdenii^b on skeletal growth traits of early weaned calves at the beginning and end of a 72-d growing phase

	Treatmenta
Item	CON	AGR	MECb	SEMc	P
Initial shoulder height, cm	96.9	96.7	96.8	0.74	0.99
Initial hip height, cm	101.2	100.7	101.0	0.72	0.96
Final shoulder height, cm	105.3	104.2	103.8	0.51	0.46
Final hip height, cm	113.8	113.8	113.4	0.54	0.94
Shoulder growth, cm	8.4	7.5	6.8	0.51	0.47
Hip growth, cm	12.7	13.1	12.2	0.50	0.78
Initial BW: shoulder	2.17	1.97	2.18	0.059	0.28
Final BW: shoulder	2.91	3.00	3.03	0.044	0.52
Initial BW: hip height	2.09	2.08	2.07	0.044	0.99
Final BW: hip height	3.14	3.28	3.30	0.049	0.36

^aCalves were developed for 72 d: 1) control (CON), fed grower diet exclusively; 2) aggressive (AGR), fed 2.0% of initial BW on an as-fed basis of grower diet at 0630 h and ad libitum finishing diet at 0930 h; 3) M. elsdenii culture (MEC), drenched with 50 mL of M. elsdenii (Lactipro Advance; MS Biotech, Inc., Wamego, KS) on day 0 of the trial, fed 2.0% of initial BW on an as-fed basis of grower diet at 0630 h and ad libitum finishing diet at 0930 h.

^bCalves were dosed with no M. elsdenii or 50 mg of M. elsdenii (Lactipro; MS Biotech, Inc., Wamego, KS) on day 1 of the trial.

^cPooled standard error of treatment means (n = 15 pens/treatment).

^a–cRow means that do not have common superscripts differ (P < 0.05).

^x–yRow means that do not have common superscripts tend to differ (0.05 < P ≤ 0.10).