Fat digestion and faecal bile acid excretion in veal calves fed milk replacers containing either coconut fat or tallow

Thirty eight veal calves aged 7 weeks were fed milk replacers containing either coconut fat or tallow for a period of 15 weeks. Body weight gain was 114.2 ± 10.3 and 115.7 ± 22.5 kg (mean ± SD, n = 19, P > 0.05) for the calves fed the diets with either coconut fat or tallow, respectively. Faeces were collected during the last week of the trial. Apparent digestibility of crude fat was 93.3 ± 4.9 and 91.4 ± 3.4% (P = 0.17) for the calves fed on either coconut fat or tallow, respectively. Group mean of bile acid excretion was higher in the calves fed coconut fat instead of tallow, but the difference was not statistically significant. For individual calves a significant (P = 0.001), negative correlation coefficient (r = −0.54) was computed for the relation between faecal bile acid excretion and apparent fat digestibility.