ANN 121: Applied Animal Nutrition-I (2+1)

Feeding high yielding cows and buffaloes

FEEDING HIGH YIELDING COWS/BUFFALOES

Feeding of milch animals during early lactation 

The rate of milk letdown in high yielders (producing above 15 kg of milk/day) in the first six weeks of lactation, is so high that the secretion of nutrients into the milk exceeds the rate of uptake of nutrients from the digestive tract. The nutrient deficit is compensated by the diversion of nutrients from the body reserves (mobilisation of body fat and protein) resulting in weight loss.Too large a loss in body weight can prove harmful and uneconomical. The appetite of the animal during the early lactation (upto 8 weeks) is reduced by 2 to 3 kg per day. So all the nutrients needs of the animal are to be provided within this appetite limit. It is difficult to meet the nutrient requirements, particularly the energy requirement of such high yielders (more than 15 kg of milk production per day in cows and 12 kg milk yield per day in buffaloes) through normal concentrate mixture and fodder. High energy diets are to be formulated and challenge feeding has to be adopted. Adequate fibre (36% NDF in the total ration) is critical for maintenance of normal milk fat. Usually, all such cows and buffaloes will remain under negative energy balance during first 5 months of lactation.

Challenge feeding

• Challenge feeding starts two weeks before the expected date of calving (Steaming up). Feeding concentrate mixture should be started initially at 500 g per day and increase it gradually to a level of 500 -1000g per 100 kg body weight.
• High milk producing animals are fed increasing quantitiy of feed challenging them to produce at their maximum potential. This challenge feeding will condition her digestive system for the increased quantity of feed to provide sufficient nutrients to initiate lactation on a higher plane. This effect has been found to have higher total milk yield in the lactation.
• In the light of advances made in the field of protein metabolism, the protein requirements in ruminants are calculated based on rumen protein degradability.
• Mobilization of body reserves during early lactation can be prevented by feeding high fat, high protein oilseeds such as cottonseed which supply both protein and long chain fatty acids (LCAs) for post ruminal digestion ( bypass protein and by pass fat).

Feeding Soybean to high yielding cows/buffaloes:

• Soybean has to fed as both whole oil seed and solvent extracted soybean meal to cows during lactation, more so during the first 3 to 5 months, to overcome the negative energy balance.
• A milch cow was fed 6 kg of concentrate mixture (maize 40%, soybean meal 30%, groundnut meal 10%, rice polish 10%, molasses 7%, mineral mixture 3%), 1 kg of soybeans, 30 kg green fodder and adlibitum wheat straw throughout the 10 months of lactation.
• The cow yielded 4836 kg milk during the lactation period. It was inferred that better milk yield persistency seemed to be as a result of supplementing extra energy and additional protein from one kg whole soybean.
• Twenty Murrah buffaloes yielding 9.2 kg milk per day were used to assess the usefulness of feeding full fat soybean on milk production traits.
• The study was conducted fro 11 weeks. Milk fat booster (MFB) was prepared by mixing soybean 60%, soybean meal 30% and maize 10% ( CP -36% and EE -10%). Each animal was offered fat booster 2 kg, cottonseed cake 1kg, maize- 2 kg and straw ad libitum.
• The results showed an improvement in fat percent from 6.69 to 7.48 while there was not much difference in milk yield. Since most of the high yielding cows and buffaloes are expected to be in negative energy balance during first timester of lactation, the soybean feeding can be advantageous to boost milk or milk fat percentage. (Source: S.P.Arora and D.Bhosale" Future of feed industry in dairy sector in India" Technical bulletin of American Soybean Association)

Some examples of concentrate mixtures

Ration 1
Groundnut cake	35
Wheat bran	20
Maize	15
Oat/Bajra/Sorghum	15
Gram chunnies Mineral Mixture Common Salt	12 2 1
Total	100

 

Ration 2
Mustard cake	20
Wheat bran	45
Green gram chunnies Mineral Mixture Common salt	32 2 1
Total	100

 

Ration 3
Tapioca chips	20
Groundnut cake	30
Gram chuni	22
Rice bran Mineral mixture Common Salt	25 2 1
Total	100

 

Ration 4
Groundnut cake	20
Rice bran	25
Wheat bran	10
Gram husk	27
Cotton seed cake Mineral Mixture Common Salt	15 2 1
Total	100

High yielding Dairy Cattle Nutrition

• Cows yielding more than 20 kg/day and buffaloes yielding more than 15 kg per day are high yielding animals.
• Nutrient requirements vary with the stage of lactation and gestation. Five distinct feeding phases can be defined to attain optimum production, reproduction and health of dairy cows:  

• Phase 1 : Early lactation—1 to 70 days (peak milk production) after calving (postpartum).
• Phase 2 : Peak DM intake—70 to 140 days (declining milk production) postpartum.
• Phase 3 : Mid- and late lactation—140 to 305 days (declining milk production) postpartum.
• Phase 4 : Dry period—60 to 14 days before the next lactation.
• Phase 5 : Transition or close-up period—14 days before to parturition.