Table 1.

Vaginal, rectal, and skin udder temperature and respiration rate (RR) of lactating Holstein cows fed an Aspergillus oryzae (AO) postbiotic under heat stress conditions (least squares means ± SEM). CTL control treatment. ^a,bSuperscripts denote AO dose differences among means (0.05 < P ≤ 0.10). CTL vs. AO denotes contrast between CTL and AO postbiotic.

Item	AO dose, g/day				SEM	P-value	Polynomial Contrasts (P-Value)
	0	3	6	18		CTL vs. AO	Linear	Quadratic	Cubic
24 h Vaginal, °C
Mean	38.7	39.2	39.0	39.1	0.231	0.119	0.418	0.379	0.176
Minimum	38.2	38.6	38.3	38.4	0.292	0.324	0.822	0.580	0.183
Maximum	39.4	39.9	39.7	39.7	0.247	0.179	0.677	0.374	0.190
Delta Max–Min	1.23b	1.36ab	1.41a	1.30ab	0.061	0.074	0.842	0.029	0.789
Rectal, °C
Morning	38.7	38.7	38.8	38.7	0.056	0.196	0.989	0.083	0.931
Afternoon	39.3	39.4	39.6	39.4	0.095	0.225	0.607	0.110	0.579
Udder, °C
Morning	34.7	34.9	34.8	34.7	0.170	0.641	0.827	0.650	0.838
Afternoon	36.7	36.5	36.4	36.6	0.195	0.504	0.872	0.293	0.968
RR, breaths/min
Morning	60.3	64.0	59.3	62.0	1.89	0.522	0.911	0.700	0.056
Afternoon	91.9	88.4	86.6	89.8	2.20	0.178	0.925	0.084	0.913