Historically, dairy rations have generally formulated crude protein (CP) to the standard value needed to supply adequate feed nitrogen (N) in the cow’s diet, to help maintain the cow’s health, welfare and milk productivity.
Dietary fats are an essential element in dairy cow nutrition. Traditionally, fats have been fed to increase the dietary energy, due to their high energy concentration; around 2.25 times higher than other nutrients, molecules react with a glycerol molecule.
There has been a big push in recent years to cut grass for silage at shorter intervals (typically 28 days), to maximise energy and protein yield. The principal definitely leads to better silage quality, reducing bought in feed costs per litre of milk produced. This system has been made much easier with the availability of high capacity harvesting equipment to cover vast areas in a short space of time, making the most of available weather windows. That said, this system does not always lead to consistent silage at feed out and if not well managed, actually creates more problems than it solves.
Starch levels are often seen as a measure of milk potential and rumen stability in diets, thus used as a benchmark when formulating diets.
In reality, starch levels in diets do not matter, because in isolation they don't tell you a great deal. Starch is only one of four energy sources to the rumen and furthermore, the degradability of starch sources greatly influences rumen dynamics.
Maintaining a consistent diet for milking cows should be the main objective day-to-day, yet, for several reasons this is often not achieved.
Many farmers and dairy specialists concentrate on increasing the cows dry matter (DM) intake. Whilst maximising DM intake is important, it requires much more than simply dumping a ration of essential nutrient in front of the cows. Providing a consistent diet in terms of nutrients and structure promotes stable intakes and maintains good rumen health.
The transition period for the dairy cow; three weeks prepartum, into three weeks postpartum is the most important phase in the lactation cycle. Rightly, transition management is receiving much greater attention and more importantly so is the nutrition.
“So, how can farm benchmarking help my farm?” You may ask. Well, it can have great benefits in helping to make your farm business more profitable, resilient, and reach your long-term goals. It offers farms the chance to analyse and compare their performance with either themselves annually, or other farms of a similar size and enterprise mix. With the industries future uncertain and markets volatile thanks to a combination of Brexit and climate change amongst several other factors, benchmarking can help ensure the business is operating as efficiently as possible.
The AminoMatch nutritional approach is based on characterising the amino acid profile of your forage and then reducing dietary crude protein (CP) levels by ensuring an adequate supply of the first limiting amino acids; methionine and lysine.
Cows are often moved between groups in accordance with their management needs. During each move, the cow needs to re-establish her rank within the groups pecking order. The cows’ rank is associated with their age, body size and seniority of the cow i.e. a heifer in her first lactation will be of low rank.
Whilst developed several decades ago, research into high sugar grasses and their proposed benefits has been continual. But where do they differ from normal grasses? Firstly, their “higher sugar” levels are delivered through greater water-soluble carbohydrate (WSC) levels within the grass. These WSC’s are present within the plant’s cells as opposed to the cell walls, where they take longer to be broken down for energy in the rumen. Higher WSC content within the grasses offers a greater amount of readily available energy within the cow’s diet, allowing for more efficient utilisation of dietary proteins in the rumen.
