Nutritional Control of Feed Intake in Dairy Cattle
Published:April 27, 2009
Summary
Feed intake is determined by many interacting factors and prediction of feed intake is the "Achilles heel" of diet formulation. Many different diet characteristics interact with environment and physiological state of cows, making it difficult to predict feed intake accurately. However, understanding the factors controlling feeding allows us to manipulate diets to optimize feed intake. Eating is c...
I want to add a point or two. NEFA conc is affected by energy balance and the effect is mediated through insulin. During transition period the intake is reduced largely due to physical limitations due to fetus. Hormones like surge of estrogen also play arole in DMI. Kinetics of energy balance during transition period helps to explain not only milk production but also variations in DMI. Energy density of diet is also important in determing the intake of energy.
When we go on dairies and see what the cows are telling us, we usually find a lot simply by testing the water. When we see 25ppm pseudomonas in the water along with everything else we test for it is amazing we can even make milk production on some of these dairies. And hydrogen peroxide in the water is not the answer. We have seen DMI increase 2-4 pounds and feed effeciencies increase from .2 to .5 when we get the water right.
This is a very informative article for feeding high yielding animals. The real challanges is precise feeding of indivisual animals in a herd by grouping or by individual feeder on day to day basis. How to impement such precise feeding? Definitely, lot of diseases of animals can be prevented if the feeding is controlled as per requirements for individual animals. When we talk about group feeding it is very difficult to monitor individual animals.
Very interesting. I think that its important to stimulate feed intake, especially during transition. I think that metabolic control (ex. insulin) of feed intake is more important that we believe in the past.
