Strategic Supplementation of Antioxidant Micronutrients in Peri-parturient Murrah Buffaloes Helps Augment the Udder Health and Milk Production Himanshu Pratap Singh 1 & Ravindra Kumar Jain 1 & Divya Tiwari 1 & Mukesh Kumar Mehta 1 & Vishal Mudgal 2 Received: 23 May 2020 /Accepted: 29 July 2020 # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020 Abstract The experiment was conducted to study the effect of supplementation of designer dietary antioxidant micronutrients on udder health, milk yield, and its quality in buffaloes under field conditions. Sixteen healthy multiparous advanced pregnant graded Murrah buffaloes (around the last 3 months of gestation), identical in body weights, parity, and feeding conditions, were selected for the study. Feed offered and residues left of an individual animal were measured and recorded for 7 consecutive days with the sampling of feeds being offered to buffaloes and analyzed for dry matter and trace minerals Zn, Cu, and Se. Carotene and vitamin E content of offered feed samples were calculated based on reported values. The calculation was made to determine the deficiency of above micronutrients, and an antioxidant micronutrient supplement was designed to take care of the deficient micronutrients and supplemented in half of the buffaloes (n = 8) considered to be a treatment, while remaining half (n = 8) is considered to be control, fed as per the existing practice of farmer without additional supplementation. This supplementation study was continued for 2 months during advanced pregnancy and thereafter for 3 months post-calving. Dry matter intake recorded weekly during the pre- and postpartum period of study remained comparable (P > 0.05) between two groups. Udder health monitored fortnightly by modified California mastitis test, milk pH and somatic cell count indicated improvement (P < 0.05) of strategic antioxidant micronutrients supplementation. Milk yield started showing improvement (P < 0.05) as early as the first week after starting lactation with throughout enhanced (P < 0.05) values of milk protein, fat percentage, and fat- corrected milk yield. It may be concluded that strategic antioxidant micronutrient supplementation (Zn, Cu, and vitamins A and E) in the ration of peri-parturient buffaloes not only improved the udder health by reducing the occurrence of mastitis but also increased the milk yield as well as fat and protein percentage of milk. Keywords Antioxidant nutrients . Buffaloes . Mastitis . Milk quality . Milk yield . Udder health Introduction India is the largest producer of milk and produces 13.1% of total milk in the world. Indian buffaloes are an important source of milk supply and yield nearly three times as much milk as cows. These livestock species are prone to intra- mammary infections, which are associated with a lot of eco- nomic impact to the farmers [1]. Mastitis is an important dis- ease of dairy animal and threats for dairy farmers in many parts of the world [2], because this disease reduces the milk yield, lowers the quality of milk, and shortens the productive life of animal, thereby leading to heavy economic loss. Annual economic loss due to mastitis has been calculated to be Rs. 7165.51 crores, losses being almost the same for cows (3649.56 crores) and buffaloes (3515.95 crores). Subclinical mastitis has been estimated to account for 57.93% (4151.61 crores) of total economic loss due to mastitis [3]. National Academy of Agricultural Sciences in its policy document recommended that ‘Nutrition play an important role in the control of mastitis’ [4] and lack of sufficient targeted dietary micronutrients adversely affect the health [5–10]. In terms of udder health, vitamin E and selenium (Se) are by far the most important vitamin and mineral, as shown in Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s12011-020-02319-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Vishal Mudgal vishalmudgal1@rediffmail.com; vishal.mudgal@icar.gov.in 1 Department of Animal Nutrition, College of Veterinary Science and Animal Husbandry, Mhow, M. P. 453 446, India 2 Division of Animal Nutrition and Feed Technology, ICAR – Central Institute for Research on Buffaloes, Hisar, Haryana 125 001, India Biological Trace Element Research https://doi.org/10.1007/s12011-020-02319-0