Effects of Capsicum oleoresin on the Growth Performance, Nutrient Digestibility and Meat Quality of Fattening Beef Cattle

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Major comment:
1. Even though the author claims this study is new, for me, this dietary capsicin is general or even explored already. However, it may be true to some extent that beef nutrition is limited. Following lines 105-106, regarding Capsicin-derived treatments, are unclear.
-Check again exactly the content from the company; "a minimum capsaicin content of ≥ 2%" does not reflect the reader's understanding well.
-Authors did experiments via drinking water and discussed a little bit about the behavior of beef during experiments. For instance, the differential oil to water may be unpleasant to the animals.
2. Lines 238–261, capsicin may increase palatability only. This is my speculation following your results and discussion. Here, DMI is linearly increasing, but not for apparently DM. Double check and rewrite to focus on it, and use the study/s from ruminants only.
3. Lines 326, in conclusion, it's not general practical, especially talking about the economy factor, unless authors write an introduction regarding the current state of geophysical experiments.

Minor comment:
1. Italic for all latin name

Author Response

Comments 1:Even though the author claims this study is new, for me, this dietary capsicin is general or even explored already. However, it may be true to some extent that beef nutrition is limited. Following lines 105-106, regarding Capsicin-derived treatments, are unclear.

- Check again exactly the content from the company; "a minimum capsaicin content of ≥ 2%" does not reflect the reader's understanding well.

-Authors did experiments via drinking water and discussed a little bit about the behavior of beef during experiments. For instance, the differential oil to water may be unpleasant to the animals.

Response 1: Thank you for your insight. According to your opinion, I will explain the treatment of capsicum oleoresin in line 105-106 as follows.

- The“a minimum capsaicin content of ≥ 2%” in the manuscript refers to the content of pure capsaicin ≥2% in capsicum oleoresin products , sorry to make you confused, has been revised in the manuscript.

- Thank you for your comments. The Capsicum oleoresin Supplement in the experiment was made by sprinkling it on the surface of the feed and letting the cattle lick it directly into the body. The use of capsicum oleoresin instead of pure capsaicin is intended to minimize this irritation

Comments 2: Lines 238–261, capsicin may increase palatability only. This is my speculation following your results and discussion. Here, DMI is linearly increasing, but not for apparently DM. Double check and rewrite to focus on it, and use the study/s from ruminants only

Response 2: Thanks for your valuable comments, we have revised this section according to the reviewers' comments, see the manuscript“4.1.Growthperformance”

Comment 3: Line 326. All in all, it is not generally practical, especially to talk about economic factors, unless the author writes an introduction to the current state of geophysical experiments.

Response 3: Thank you for your insightful comments. According to your comments, delete the relevant content about economic interests in the conclusion. Thanks again for your comments.

Comment 4: All Latin names are in italics

Response 4: Thank you for your valuable comments. According to the reviewer's comments, we have revised the full text of the relevant content

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This manuscript fits well with the scope of the journal and provide relevant content to ruminant's research. There are important aspects need to be addressed before further consideration (please see below comments). 

- How was the doses were determined? please explain.  

Line 57-59: please indicate whether these effects are in humans or livestock?

Table 1: what corn was that? Corn silage? Corn grain? Please specify!

In the method, I do not see how the management of the cattle, were they kept in individual house or in pens? Please provide as detailed as possible information regarding this. Also, how’s about the adaptation and covariate periods?

The method to determine the digestibility was probably incorrect if the feces was only collected once daily. Please clarify how’s this method was adapted and the reference!

Statistical analysis: it needs to be explained about the random and fixed effects terms, covariate, etc.

Table 2: why the ADG were different between groups but final BW were not? Please recheck the heterogeneity of the data.

Table 5: I don’t understand what these data are about. The title of the table is ambiguous

Line 244-249: I don’t see any relevance of the laying ducks study in this manuscript. Please delete!

In the subsection of growth performance, authors still have not explain the possible mechanisms of how the CAP improved DMI and feed efficiency. As authors aware, the dose they used where higher than used in dairy cows by other studies; this need to be discussed.

Line 269: this statement is incorrect based on the data on the tables showing the different superscript. Please clarify! Also, authors remained unable to explain the linear increase of digestibility due to CAP utilization.

Conclusions need to be revisited and adjusted based on the data.

Author Response

Comments 1:How was the doses were determined? please explain.

Response 1: Thank you for your insight. According to your comments, I will make the following explanation for the determination of dose. In the early stage, our team carried out a related experiment of feeding 250mg of pure capsaicin to beef cattle with subacute gastric acidosis. Based on this, we consulted the literature, referred to the addition amount of capsaicin or capsaicin oil resin in other livestock and poultry production and feeding, combined with the original intention of this study, and finally determined the dosage in the experiment through team discussion.

Comments 2: Line 57-59: please indicate whether these effects are in humans or livestock?

Response 2: Thank you for your careful comments. These effects in Line57-59 are mainly proved by medical research, and the research carriers are humans, rats and mice.

Comments 3: Table 1: what corn was that? Corn silage? Corn grain? Please specify!

Response 3: Thank you for your comment. The Corn in the feed here refers to corn kernels. I'm sorry for your confusion. I have changed "Corn" to "Corn kernels" in the manuscript.

Comments 4: In the method, I do not see how the management of the cattle, were they kept in individual house or in pens? Please provide as detailed as possible information regarding this. Also, how’s about the adaptation and covariate periods?

Response 4: Thank you for your comments. In the method, beef cattle are fenced in barns, with every two cattles in a pen. About feeding period, adaptation period 7 days, trial period 90 days. Relevant additions have been made to the manuscript.

Comments 5: The method to determine the digestibility was probably incorrect if the feces was only collected once daily. Please clarify how’s this method was adapted and the reference!

Response 5: We used the method of total feces collection for a certain period of time to determine the digestibility. This method is used in animal nutrition research and has been proved to be reliable. We referred to the relevant literature and standards to determine the collection time and frequency of feces. In this study, we collected feces once daily for a period of 7 days to ensure the accuracy of the results. Modify as follows:

A week before the end of the trial period, fecal samples were collected before morning feeding for seven consecutive days. Collected fecal samples were thoroughly mixed for individual beef cattle to obtain representative samples and dried at 65 ℃ to determine the initial moisture [27].

[27] Qiu Q, Zhu Y, Qiu X, Gao C, Wang J, Wang H, He Y, Rahman MAU, Cao B, Su H. Dynamic Variations in Fecal Bacterial Community and Fermentation Profile of Holstein Steers in Response to Three Stepwise Density Diets. Animals (Basel). 2019 Aug 15;9(8):560. doi: 10.3390/ani9080560. PMID: 31443265; PMCID: PMC6719243.

Comments 6: Statistical analysis: it needs to be explained about the random and fixed effects terms, covariate, etc.

Response 6:Based on your valuable comments, we have provided a detailed description of the random and fixed effects terms used in the statistical analysis. The modified content is as follows:

All data were analyzed by one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) using the GLM procedure of SPSS 26.0 software (IBM, Armonk, NY, USA), with treatments as fixed effect and beef cattle within treatment as random effect. Differences among treatments were determined by the Duncan’s multiple range test. All data were presented as least squares means with pooled standard errors.

Comments 7: Table 2: why the ADG were different between groups but final BW were not? Please recheck the heterogeneity of the data.

Response 7: Thank you for your insightful comments. After checking the data, there is no problem. Regarding the reviewer's question, I will make the following explanation. In the table data, we can see the significant difference of ADG in the group, but BW also has different trends in the data, but it is not statistically significant to get the difference through statistical calculation. Therefore, there is no difference in description as BW.

Comments 8: Table 5: I don’t understand what these data are about. The title of the table is ambiguous

Response 8: Thank you for your comments. In accordance with the comments of the reviewer, the manuscript has been revised by changing the”Effects of CAP on the conventional nutritional components of fattening beef cattle ” to ” Effects of CAP on the conventional nutritional components of beef ”

Comments 9: Line 244-249: I don’t see any relevance of the laying ducks study in this manuscript. Please delete

Response 9: Thank you for your insight. According to the reviewers' opinions, the relevant contents have been deleted from the manuscript.

Comments 10: In the subsection of growth performance, authors still have not explain the possible mechanisms of how the CAP improved DMI and feed efficiency. As authors aware, the dose they used where higher than used in dairy cows by other studies; this need to be discussed.

Response 10: Thank you for your insight. According to the reviewers' opinions, we re-discussed "4.1.Growthperformance" in the manuscript. Thank you again for your review.

Comments 11: Line 269: this statement is incorrect based on the data on the tables showing the different superscript. Please clarify! Also, authors remained unable to explain the linear increase of digestibility due to CAP utilization.

Response 11: Thanks for your insight,based on the comments of the reviewers， we have collated 269 lines of the manuscript and revised the section on apparent digestibility in the discussion, see“4.2. Apparent digestibility of nutrients” in the manuscript

Comments 12: Conclusions need to be revisited and adjusted based on the data.

Response 12: Thank you for your comments. We have adjusted the conclusion section according to the reviewer's comments. Thank you for your hard work. Thank you for your time and attention to our manuscript

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Please, find attached review

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Comments 1: line 60: please add the sentence “Nevertheless, as reported by Morittu et al. (2020) the properties of Capsicum could be affected by several factors (light intensity and temperature at which the plant grows etc)

Response 1:Thank you for your valuable comments. According to the reviewers' comments, we have revised the manuscript.

Comments 2: Please provide cattle allocation (individual or collective box? Space availability?

Response 2: Thank you for your comments. In this method, beef cattle are kept in a barn, and every two cows are in a 4×4m fence. We have supplemented this issue in the manuscript.

Comments 3: Table1: I do not know Yellow storage as feed; please provide other name.

Response 3: Thank you for your comments. I'm very sorry to confuse you. The word "Yellowstorage" here is "Corn Straw Yellow Silage", a fermented feed made of yellow corn stalks, which we have revised in the manuscript.

Comments 4: Line 125: collection of faeces directly from the rectum? Please specify

Response 4: Thank you for your comments on the collection of stool samples, we collect fresh faeces that are excreted from the body.

Comments 5: Line 302: Please add the sentence: Anyway, as reported by Cutrignelli et al. (2008) the water retention also depend on the meat pH and this could hardly influence the successive muscle proteolysis”.

Response 5: Thank you for your valuable comments. According to the reviewers' comments, we have revised the manuscript.

Comments 6: References (please add the following)

Cutrignelli, M. I., Calabrò, S., Bovera, F., Tudisco, R., D’Urso, S., Marchiello, M., … Infascelli, F. (2008). Effects of two protein sources and energy level of diet on the performance of young Marchigiana bulls. 2. Meat quality. Italian Journal of Animal Science, 7(3), 271–285.

Morittu, V. M., Pero, M. E., Musco, N., Mastellone, V., Tudisco, R., Provenzano, E., … Lombardi, P. (2020). Potential beneficial and/or adverse effects of Capsicum annuum L. (cv. Fiesta) at two stage of ripening in CD-1 mice. Natural Product Research, 34(11), 1647–1651

Response 6: Thank you for your valuable comments. According to the reviewers' comments, we have revised the manuscript.Thank you again for your time and attention to our manuscript.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I do not find this clarification in new file

Thank you for your comments. The Capsicum oleoresin Supplement in the experiment was made by sprinkling it on the surface of the feed and letting the cattle lick it directly into the body. The use of capsicum oleoresin instead of pure capsaicin is intended to minimize this irritation

Author Response

Comments 1:I do not find this clarification in new file

Thank you for your comments. The Capsicum oleoresin Supplement in the experiment was made by sprinkling it on the surface of the feed and letting the cattle lick it directly into the body. The use of capsicum oleoresin instead of pure capsaicin is intended to minimize this irritation

Response 1: Thank you for your comment. According to the reviewer's opinion, we added "After breakfast is served, CAP is sprinkled on the surface of the feed and licked by the cattle for ingestion." in the manuscript. About "The use of capsicum oleoresin instead of pure capsaicin is intended to minimize this irritation"，it was our explanation to the reviewers, so we didn't add this in the manuscript.Thank you again for your time and effort in our manuscript.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Authors have answered and addressed the comments sufficiently. 

Author Response

Comments 1:Authors have answered and addressed the comments sufficiently.

Response 1: Thank you for your comments, and thank you for your recognition of our work, we will continue to work hard, I wish you a happy life and smooth work