SUSTAINABILITY 58 FEED & ADDITIVE MAGAZINE July 2024 with trace minerals that meet the animal’s nutritional requirements and are highly bioavailable inside the animal helps producers achieve more with less. Minerals can have an adverse effect on fibre digestibility, which can influence overall milk production. Multiple independent studies have recently confirmed the negative influence of sulfate trace minerals (copper, zinc and manganese sulfate) on neutral detergent fibre digestibility (NDFd) in lactating dairy cows (see Figure 1). This effect results primarily from the antimicrobial effect of soluble copper and zinc, which can react with fibre-digesting microbes in the rumen, reducing ration efficiency. This in turn can have a negative effect on the level of carbon emissions released per litre of milk produced. The same research has shown that when sulfate trace minerals are completely replaced with Selko® IntelliBond® ® trace minerals (copper, zinc and manganese) NDFd can be optimised, which can be captured as an increase in energy-corrected milk (see Figure 2). Based on the positive effect of Selko® IntelliBond® on NDFd and resulting productivity, Selko® completed a comprehensive lifecycle assessment (LCA) to measure the ability of Selko® IntelliBond® to lower the cow’s carbon footprint. The LCA indicated TN AgResearch Inst.11 Kempenshof Inst.12 Miner Inst. B5 Miner Inst. A5 Cornell Univ.14 -10 0 10 20 30 40 50 % Diff. Sulfate Based Selko IntelliBond Kgs of 3.5% fat corrected milk yield -1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 P=0.90 P=0.90 P=0.99 P=0.79 P=0.10 P=0.10 P=0.2 P=0.02 P=0.09 P=0.04 P=0.04 ∆ Digestibility / Degradability (% points) Bold indicates P-value ≤ 0.10 Overall: +1.7% points =0.02 14 P In Situ Digestibility Test Method Marker Total Collection Corn silage/grass hay in steers - High TM levels8 Corn silage/grass hay in steers - Low TM levels8 Corn silage in lactating cows9 Corn silage in lactating cows10 Conventional corn silage in lactating cows5 BMR corn silage in lactating cows5 By-product diet in lactating cows3 Corn/alfalfa silage in lactating cows3 Corn silage/steam-flaked corn in steers4 Corn silage in steers7 Grass hay in steers6 B. Bradford, MI State University Figure 1 Figure 2
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