Are you feeding a fat?


Eoghan Mullery evaluates the differences in protected fats.


Are you feeding a fat?

My clients tell me that one of the most common questions they get asked by fellow farmers, nutritionists and vets on farm is, “are you feeding a protected fat?”

The science out there shows the benefits of feeding a fat outweighing the cost. Increased yield; better milk quality; and improved conception rates are all claims made, dependent on the type of fat being fed. More often than not, the response is predictable and indeed cost effective. The use of protected fats in modern dairy rations has become the norm. As milk yields have increased, the need to raise energy intakes to support these higher yields, means that cows need to either eat more dry matter; eat higher energy dense rations; or ideally both! On your farm, if a protected fat is required, the challenge is to select the correct product from an ever-increasing range! For many, its an automatic choice to reach for calcium soap, because calcium soaps show well proven, predictable results, so why not?

Advanced Nutrition's Optimax offers a good alternative, with a lower melting point its easier for the cow to digest increasing feed efficiency. It gives a good rate of energy, and with raw material prices at inflated levels, it offers good value for money.

Having spent time feeding cows in North America, I was continually surprised at the difference in the approach to feeding a protected fat. Yes, most dairies were feeding a protected fat but very few were on a calcium soap type. They had two main concerns. Firstly, the negative effect on dry matter intake and secondly the excess weight loss in early lactation, high-yielding cows. I wanted to see for myself what effect, if any, feeding two different types of fat would have on farm.
Also, looking at the effect in practical circumstances - on a working dairy farm in Scotland, in Scottish conditions! The aim of the trial was to monitor body condition on selected cows, using a weigh band and to see if feeding different fats made any difference to weight loss.

Thanks to the Picken family from Kirkcudbright in South West Scotland, I got the opportunity to do just that. With 430 cows in total, we worked with the high yielding freshest cows, 160 of which are in one group. Cows are fed a TMR, and milked twice a day producing an average of circa 30-31 litres/day. For an initial period, cows were fed calcium soap at 0.5kg/head/day. After 40 days this was replaced with an alternative type of fat - in this case Optimax, a blended soft oil product was selected. This was fed at the same rate, 0.5kg/head/day. 6 cows were selected to calve down into each treatment, 12 cows in total. These cows were weighed pre calving and again after approximately four weeks into lactation.

Clearly all cows lost condition as expected. However, the rate of loss was much lower in the group fed Optimax than that of the calcium soap fed group. Cows lost 500g of weight per day less on Optimax and the implications of this are very significant.

In simple terms, this suggests that the Optimax supplied more energy to the cows at a very crucial time of lactation. Funnily enough, this result falls right in line with what my old colleagues in America suspected, but lets not give them too much credit! At this stage we should mention the milk yield, as we had full recording details from the rotary parlour computer software. Comparing milk yields was difficult due to availability of cows, parity, type etc. However, in saying that, it should be noted that during the trial and in following months, the cows fed Optimax gave a more consistent yield pattern than those fed on calcium soap. We also got more milk from the cows that were fed Optimax. The take home message here is simple. While this was not a controlled research-led expensive university trial, it was a practical approach on a farm as a day-to-day ‘real life’ trial, so the conclusions we can draw from it are these:

  • Consider carefully when selecting a protected fat
  • Don’t automatically reach for what you have always used as it may cost your cows too many kilos of bodyweight
  • If searching for a yield response, remember that we still need to get her in calf and cows loosing too much weight will be slower to get back in calf.

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