ISSUE FOCUS 20 FEED & ADDITIVE MAGAZINE September 2023 “There is a significant economic advantage to monitor feed efficiency. It allows farmers to regularly adjust the nutrition of the herd in order to maximize income from milk production regarding feed price of the moment. The use of single or blend of phytogenics can be part of the global approach to increase feed efficiency.” In dairy farming, performance can be expressed by Energy Corrected Milk (ECM), which takes into account milk yield, but also protein and fat contents. ECM is an accurate herd indicator reflecting diet valorization and herd’s productivity. Economic performance is key to control farm rentability taking into account that milk prices are still volatile in different markets and tend to decrease, whereas raw materials prices globally increase. RUMEN FLORA MODULATION IS ONE OF THE LEVERS TO IMPROVE PERFORMANCE Dietary proteins are more or less degraded by ruminal flora to produce microbial proteins and ammonia. Microbial proteins and certain dietary proteins not degraded in the rumen are then digested in the intestine to produce milk. Protein supply in the feed and protein degradation level in the rumen need to be adjusted in order to provide sufficient essential amino acids supply for absorption in the gut to maximize performance and limit ammonia production. Research has demonstrated that usually less than 30% of protein intake can be retrieved in milk protein content form. Up to 80% of energy supply to ruminants comes from volatile fatty acids. Rumen fermentations produce mainly acetic, butyric, lactic and propionic acids. Levels and ratio of each volatile fatty acids for optimum rumen efficiency have been determined after years of research and constitute nutrition standards. Due to high level of concentrates in modern dairy farming, rumen functioning can be disturbed and this can lead to misbalanced ratios of volatile fatty acids. Increase of concentrates intake has been shown to increase acetic and lactic acids production and to decrease ruminal pH. At short term this strategy can in fact lead to more volatile fatty acids production from important and rapid starch degradation of concentrates. But constant drops in ruminal pH cause non-ideal condition for cellulolytic flora development. This leads to the decrease of fiber digestibility, whereas it accounts for a consequent amount of ruminants’ diets. USING PLANT-BASED PRODUCTS TO IMPROVE RUMINANTS’ PERFORMANCE Isabelle Coudray Product Manager miXscience
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