Satyaraj, E. et al.

2013

The British journal of nutrition

It is well known that newborns require colostrum and there is increasing interest in the systemic effect of feeding bovine colostrum (BC) to adult humans. However, there are no reports of systematic evaluations into the impact of colostrum on the canine immune response. Thus the aim of this study was to assess the effect on canine immune response of using BC as a dietary supplement. The study involved twenty-four dogs with a mean age 2.5 years, randomised into two groups. During the 'pre-test' phase, lasting eight weeks, both groups were fed a nutritionally complete diet and given a canine distemper virus (CDV) vaccine at the end. During the subsequent test phase, lasting forty weeks, a 'test group' was switched to a diet supplemented with 0.1% spray-dried BC, whilst a ‘control group’ remained on the original diet.