Can milk replacer allowance affect animal performance, body development, metabolism, and skeletal muscle hypertrophy in preweaning dairy kids?

ABSTRACT We aimed to evaluate performance, body development, metabolism, and expression of genes related to skeletal muscle hypertrophy in uncastrated male dairy kids fed with different levels of milk replacer (MR) during the preweaning period. Sixty newborn male kids, not castrated, from Saanen and Swiss Alpine breeds, with an average BW of 3.834 ± 0.612 kg, were distributed in a randomized block design. Breeds were the block factor in the model (random effect). Kids were allocated into 2 nutrition plans (n = 30 kids/treatment) categorized as follows: low nutritional plan (LNP; 1 L of MR/kid per day) or high nutritional plan (HNP; 2 L of MR/kid per day). All kids were harvested at 45 d of life. The majority of nitrogen balance variables were affected by the nutritional plan (P P P P P P P = 0.045), but AMPK was not affected by the nutritional plan. Our findings show that a higher milk replacer allowance enhances animal performance, body development, metabolic parameters, and cellular hypertrophy in preweaning dairy kids.