Alkalage provides significant health improvements for David Shuttleworth’s 500-cow flying Holstein herd averaging 10,000 litres…

Introducing Alkalage to a PMR diet has resulted in significant health improvements for David Shuttleworth’s 500-cow flying Holstein herd averaging 10,000 litres.

“Cow health has massively benefitted after replacing fermented wholecrop with Alkalage in the silage-based diet. Before we used to have up to half a dozen cows each vet visit to be checked because they weren’t getting going or firing off right. Now the vet visits incur very few to check, most are just for pregnancy diagnosis with a few silent heats. We are using less fertility drugs as well as less antibiotics and nowadays we target cows for fertility support dependent on their health and yield utilising PRIDs where necessary.

“Furthermore, we’ve reduced losses to just one cow, if that, every three months. We’ve had no right displaced abomasums, whereas previously we used to have several in a 12-month period. The cows have also remained much more stable when grass silage quality has changed during the year,” explains David who manages a 530-acre unit near Skipton, North Yorkshire.

“Added together we’re making cost savings in terms of vet and med bills plus reduced losses by changing just one element in the diet” he says. “The economics also add up in terms of the Alkalage providing 4% extra crude protein, 7% higher starch and 40% more dry matter, which in turn has enabled us to reduce the quantity of purchased protein and starch we would previously have fed.”

Feeding fermented wholecrop had provided a solution to producing milk from homegrown forage until last year when the weather and forage growth challenges eventually led David to change direction harvesting the unit’s 115 acres of wheat four weeks later when ripe in September and treating it with Home ’n Dry.

“We’re more than aware that buying in all our replacements through the ring and with no rearing history, means there are more health challenges, and always potential for issues around calving and in early lactation. Many are gut related, consequently rumen health and development are of key concern in these cows,” he says. “To reduce the challenge, we subsequently work hard to optimise both transition and lactating diets and we’ve found that alkasystems technology can provide a substrate which reduces the risk of any gut health issues.”

Debby Brown continues: “Alkalage provides an increased nitrogen source to feed the rumen microbes so they can better utilise the energy provided in the diet as well as Alkalage resulting in an improved rumen environment, and a more productive microbial population. In turn, this leads to more microbial protein being produced along with more milk.

“The neutralised rumen enables the rumen papillae to be maintained and grow instead of being damaged in a sub-acute ruminal acidosis scenario, consequently the more volatile fatty acids produced by the microbes are absorbed and converted into energy for the cow via the liver. The healthier rumen results in better feed intake, especially at the critical transition stage, and this, minimises the risk of the abomasum becoming inflamed, full of gas, and then displacing in the abdomen.”

She adds: “The main aim when feeding cows is to keep them healthy. Nutrition is one part of this. Any support we can provide our cows to optimise balance and performance of the gut and its microbes and cells is always going to be beneficial.”