Feeding fat to dairy cows: A complex subject

Lorenzo Quesnel Dear, if you want to drive milk protein content you need to check with your dairy nutritionist the amino acid balance and more special the Metabolisable amino acid balance. You can add bypass methionine (there are a lot of products of bypass methionine) in the ration with an optimum of about 10 grams per cow per day.

How much higher level fat I can use for my cow?

Beautiful article, I really learned how much fat is more than enough in the ration of lactating animals. On this topic, such good research articles are posted.

A complex subject but elucidated in a nice way!

Interesting article. It has been recommended that not more than 6 % should be incorporated in cattle feed, bypass and/ or protected fat has a positive impact on both the health and production, however, fat feeding as such in the ration could create digestive problem and reduced milk production, as it can affect the microbial activities in the rumen.

Nice information, I would like to add higher levels of palm oil based fat/fatty acids having higher level of C16 fatty acids inclusion in ration can suppress synthesis of short and middle chain fatty acids in the udder tissue. These short chain and middle chain fatty acids are important for suckling calves survival and growth also for human health.

C16:0 increases the concentration of mixed (C16:0) and total milk FA and reduces the concentration of de novo and preformed FA. On a yield basis C16:0 increases the yield of mixed and total FA with no change in the yield of de novo FA. C4:0 and C6:0 were positively associated with C16:0 while C12:0 and C14:0 were negatively associated. This is from a paper by Lock and de Souza 2018. Tri-State Dairy Nutrition Conf. Ft Wayne IN USA. Although C16:0 supplementation can reduce the concentration of de novo FA, the reduction, within practical ranges of palmitic acid supplementation, is relatively small and unlikely to affect the health of the consumer (human or bovine calf). Send me an email and I can send you the paper if you do not have access to it. Thank you.

Yes. we need to know how to increase SNF in cattle.

Thank you for this important information.
Please, send me the full paper on my mail: dr.abdalla.mansour@aswu.edu.eg

Is there any relation to reproductive problems viz repeat breeding, etc.?