Role of Flavoured Additives in Ruminant Production

Voluntary feed intake (VFI) is one of the major determinants of optimum performance and animal health in food animals. In pre-ruminants, the early consumption of solid feed would be helpful in the smooth transition from a pre-ruminant to a functioning ruminant. Further, the exorbitant prices of conventional feed ingredients throughout the world have created the impetus for greater incorporation of unconventional feed ingredients for economical livestock farming. A potential nutritional strategy to increase intake and inclusion level of poorly acceptable unconventional feed ingredients may be by improving the feed palatability by the addition of sensory additives such as flavours (aroma) and sweeteners. Cows use their senses to discriminate between feeds and can recognize five basic tastes i.e. sweet, bitter, salty, sour and umami. Flavours are often added to mask the unpleasant smell of unconventional feedstuffs and to stimulate the consumption of dry feed. Various studies have been conducted to evaluate the preference of ruminants for different flavours and their subsequent effects on feed consumption, nutrient utilization, performance outcome as well as economic implications, which are briefly discussed in this chapter. Whilst research involving flavours has shown some promising effects on VFI and body weight gain in young ruminants, the milk response of dairy cows has been inconsistent in the literature. Since the action of flavour has been transient in some reports, future research is warranted to evaluate the long-term effects of applying dietary flavours in various combinations in ruminant production.