Fats & Fatty Acids for Ruminants: a Revolution in Knowledge and Approaches

Dear Afredo,

I very much agree with your view points. As you have argued, we need to focus more on the attributes of fat as source fatty acids essential to animal and human nutrition, health, performance and wellbeing. Apart from C16:0 and PUFAs, oleic acid is being recognised as having positive effective on total fat digestibility and cow body condition. The challenge though remains one of minimising ruminal alteration of the fatty acids so that sufficient quantities can be delivered to targeted animal tissues and livestock products. In this regard, there are now available in commercial quantities calcium soap fortified with omega fatty acids (EPA and DHA) which can avoid rumen biohydrogenation to a significant level. There is also the option of vegetable fibre matrix encapsulation which has been demonstrated to achieve a transfer efficiency of around 16% of omega 3 fatty acids into milk from diet.