Response of body weight and clearance and secretion rates of growth hormone to photoperiod in Holstein heifers.

Effects of photoperiod on growth, eating patterns and clearance rate, secretion rate and half-life of growth hormone in serum were assessed in Holstein heifers. Sixty-four prepubertal heifers (avg body wt 102 kg) were blocked by weight into four groups of 16. Within block, each animal was randomly assigned to one of four photoperiod treatments: 16 h of cool-white fluorescent light:8 h dark (CW-16L:8D), CW-8L:16D, CW-6L:8D:2L:8D or 16 h of VitaLite fluorescent light:8D (V-16L:8D). Animals were fed ad libitum a complete mixed diet formulated for heifers to gain approximately .9 kg/d. Average daily body weight gains were .93, .96, .98 and 1.0 kg/d during 112 d of exposure to CW-8L:16D, CW-6L:8D:2L:8D, CW-16L:8D and V-16L:8D, respectively. Heifers exposed to V16L:8D and CW-16L:8D gained more weight (112 and 110 kg; P less than .05 and P less than .08, respectively) than heifers exposed to CW-8L:16D (104 kg). Body weight gain was not different (P greater than .10) between heifers exposed to CW-6L:8D:2L:8D (108 kg) or CW-8L:16D, or between heifers exposed to CW-16L:8D or V-16L:8D. Total number of eating events in 30 h and percentage of total events in the lighted period were 549 and 96% and 523 and 50% in heifers exposed to CW-16L:8D and CW-8L:16D, respectively. Clearance rates (620 vs 636 ml/min), secretion rates (3.0 vs 3.8 micrograms/min) and half lives (17.2 vs 17.9 min) of growth hormone in serum were similar in heifers exposed to CW-16L:8D and CW-8L:16D.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)