JB

 

With hindsight I would make three points following your question.

 

1. Publish all your results! You may regret not formally publishing some of your work in the future if you don't!

2. My former colleague Dr Tony Waterhouse made an interesting finding when he analysed the growth rates of calves on LP trials at the WSAC, calves with low serum concentrations of immunoglobulin's behaved differently than calves with normal or elevated concentrations. Consider looking at the IG-status of your calves before allocating them to treatment groups and ensure that you allow for randomisation of this potential variable. I am not sure whether we published this research.

3. Straw/hay and feed pellets contain potentially high concentrations of vegetable peroxidase. Depending on the design of your trial it may be important that you take account of vegetable peroxidase intake. Plant peroxidases have a higher binding affinity for hydrogen peroxide than lactoperoxidase. Hence the plant peroxidases have the potential to utilise the hydrogen peroxide required for LP system activation potentially giving rise to trial results showing little benefit for the LP system.

 

If you can obtain abomasal fluid it is relatively easy to assay for LP and for vegetable peroxidases. Regretfully Tony and I did not publish this work which in hindsight was a mistake and is an area that does need to be controlled in trials.

 

Tony Waterhouse still works in Scotland and can be contacted at https://www.sruc.ac.uk/" rel="nofollow - SRUC .