Insights of Herbal Supplements during Transition Period in Dairy Animals: An Updated Review

There have been unsatisfactory results from antibiotic supplementation in long run for dairy animals. Anti-biotic supplementation has been reported to accelerate the risk of antibiotic residues along with posing a potential threat to both human and animal health through compromised food safety. Therefore, there was a need of some alternative and safe supplementation to the dairy animals which may improve their produc-tion, reproduction, health, body condition, energy balance, and oxidative status. Herbal feed supplements are being widely used these days and scientists in the field of animal production are continuously devising the incorporation of some un-conventional herbal feed stuff in the diet of dairy animals. Herbal feed sup-plementation has been found comparatively much safer than any antibiotic or other inorganic feed supple-ments in farm animals. Transition management of dairy animals for improved post-partum performances has been a prime focus of most of the animal scientists. Transition period has far reaching effects on the post partum performances in regard to production, reproduction, health, body condition, energy balance, and oxidative status of dairy animals. Herbal supplements during transition period are anticipated to bring desired changes in the production, reproduction, health, body condition, energy balance, and oxidative status of dairy animals. Therefore, this review was framed with an aim of presenting a concise yet an infor-mative discussion over the effects of supplementing herbal feed additives to the dairy animals to overview its effects on different production, reproduction and health parameters.