Implications of Feeding Fat to Dairy Cows

Dear Rudra, Good to hear your view. However, protected fats in fact help reducing the risk of rumen acidosis, and protect agains metabolic dissorders and even immunitary ones, as we nowadays know that ketone bodies (coming from NEB) negatively affect the immune system. Therefore, protected fats are not only tools to increase milk production, "squeezing" animals; but they are helpful nutritional tools for maintaining an adequate health status.

Dear Mr. Rudra, This will depend on the level of production to an important extent. I mean: higher levels of production means greater needs for energy. Then, limiting the inclusion of fats will reduce to reach the animals' genetic potential for milk production. Of course, fat sources also exist in common raw materials (oilseeds, etc.), but we are expose to the negative consequences on rumen microbiota and fiber digestibility already mentioned when they are composed by high proportions of PUFAs. Also, high contents of non-protected C18:3 and C18:2 can lead to milk fat depression. Cottonseed has its fat protected naturally, so that this seed allows reducing the negative effects in rumen. However, take care with the inclusion level as cottonseed has gossypol (a toxic antinutritional factor). All the abovementioned aspects are related to rumen health. On top of that, metabolic health must be taken into consideration: ketosis and its consequences. If we talk about formulation and precision: these non-protected PUFAs will have nothing to do with the fatty acids that the cows will really absorbe; then: who knows what the consequences will be (in terms of both production and health). I hope this help. If you need to go deeper into the details, I'll do my best.

Sure Alfredo

There is no doubt on the fact that calcium soaps protection is not 100%, but it is true that they are cost-efficient in comparison with other more "complex" ones. The mechanism is in theory good, but it is not possible to know the speed of enzymes release as it depends on diet composition, passage rate, etc. As a consequence, we could finally find that they are too much protected and/or released tooo slowly, founding too much fat in the diet (low digestibility). I hope we can meet soon and discuss about these interesting technical details.

Alfredo, I agree with you but not entirely. Slow release mechanism is an important factor because we know as a fact that calcium soaps are not 100% rumen protected given the dynamics of the rumen environment. It is for this reason that slow release mechanism becomes important so that the fraction that is dissociated does not overwhelm the ability of the microbes to cope. The same applies to post-rumen digestion. If the release of the fatty acids is not in synchrony with the availability of the digestive enzymes and the emulsifiers the digestion and absorption of the nutrients will not be optimised. We should also remember that calcium salts of PUFA are unstable in the rumen meaning they require higher rumen pH threshold to minimise dissociation. The challenge has been how to deliver these essential fatty acids to dairy cow without upsetting rumen function with the associated effects of MFD. This fibre protection technique was developed as a solution to that problem. There ought to be a paradigm shift from the myth that calcium salts are the only effective form of feeding oils and fats to ruminants.

Calcium soaps are the most proven and cost-efficient fat supplements for dairy cows. This is as a general recommendation. Of course different situations (stages of production etc.) require different strategies (products), and as it has been previously mentioned, we nowadays are increasing our knowledge on it. In fact, we formulate on the basis of fatty acids already in our company. Regarding the level of protection, it must be said that this depend a lot on the companies technologies, the raw materials and rumen pH (which in turn depends on the diet, heat stress and other environmental factors). In line with this, I am afraid that ruminants do not need, at all, slow-release of fatty acids, but a good protection and then total release after the rumen. Slow-release technologies make sense in nutritients that in fact must be released in the rumen: urea, buffers, etc.

Agreed at the present time calcium soap is the most available rumen inert fat supplement but it was not initially designed to meet the specific nutritional needs of high yield dairy cows. Rather, it was developed to find out a way of delivering palm fatty acid distillate to the dairy cow in a form that would not upset the rumen function and to make use of the PFAD that was then so plenty. Today we are beginning to know more about the role of fatty acids in dairy cow nutrition and the drive is to formulate fat supplements based on specific needs of the animal as we do with amino acids in protein. To this end there are now available in the market fats supplements processed on a base of fibre matrix to render the products rumen inert and more importantly to facilitate their slow release and maximise digestion and absorption in the gut.

Dear Alfredo, It is becoming increasingly evident that when feeding oils and fats to dairy cows consideration must be given to fatty acid composition and not just total fat. Moreover, specific fatty acids have particular influence on the fat and NDF digestibility and more importantly the physiology and metabolism of the dairy cow. For example, emerging evidence points to the fact that a specific ratio of C16:0 to C18:1is required to optimise total fat digestibility as well as that of the fibre in order to enhance the overall energetic efficiency of feed. The challenge we have with calcium soaps of soft oils is there instability in the rumen and it is for this reason that we have developed a technique of delivering oils and fats in a form encapsulated inside the fibre matrix to enable slow release and facilitate escape from the rumen so that there is little negative impact on the microbes. Our on-farm data obtained from the analysis of milk fat shows no significance presence of trans-fats which is a maker for partial biohydrogenation. The level of saturated fats lowered by 5% and the essential omega fatty acids are deposited into milk from the fat supplement.

Dear all, I would recommend protected fats (bypass) in order to avoid fatty acids hydrogenation and the negative effects of free insaturated fatty acids on rumen microbiota and milk fat production. Moreover, these fats (i.e. calcium soaps) are highly digestible (more than 90% when the inclusion level is lower than 3% -it is the common level of inclusion). Regards, Alfredo.