Prof. Charles Schwab:
Prof. Schwab who declared himself as “a scientist but a farmer at heart”, presented at his first seminar in the Kemin European Roadshow an in depth view of the evolution dairy nutrition from crude protein to amino acid balancing.
“Rumen undegradable protein (RUP) and rumen degradable protein (RDP) as a percentage of dry matter, are two important sets of requirements that need to be taken into account in dairy nutrition” says Prof. Schwab. “Most of the actual models do not take into account the amino acid (AA) profile of the RUP fraction, which is one of the biggest drivers in milk production”.
Balancing diets for the most limiting AA increases the efficiency of use of RUP, and hence, and metabolisable protein, for milk and milk protein yields and increases dairy herd profitability. In this respect great progress has been made in evaluating protein and Methionine supplements for ruminants, with Methionine as the main limiting amino acid in dairy production”
Arla Foods milk pricing and desire for milk composition
Mr. Ejnar M Jacobsen, Arla Foods amba
Mr. Ejnar M. Jakobsen focused his presentation on the activities of Arla foods, a dairy cooperative owned by 4000 Swedish and 4000 Danish dairy farmers. The main goal is to pay the cooperative milk producers a performance price which on average is 5% above 5 other large dairy producers. In the last 5 years Arla Foods performance price was 7% above the other dairies levels.
Arla foods mission is to offer modern consumer milk based food products, which creates inspiration, trust and wellbeing. Therefore cattle feeding should fulfill the quality programme of Arla. The feeding strategy should aim for:
- Higher milk protein, which has a 70% better price than milk fat
- Increase milk solids
- Good quality, which delivers special bonus to farmers
- Aim for higher milk production in winter when the milk price is higher than in spring
These strategies can be also applied to organic milk. Organic milk is a market that is increasing importance and the milk price has increased by 50% just to stimulate milk production.
Will the protein utilization increase if we feed bypass starch to dairy cows?
Mogens Larsen, University of Aarhus/AgroTech og Niels Bastian Kristensen, University of Aarhus
It has often been debated whether increasing glucose absorption from the small intestine will spare amino acids used for energetic and glucogenic purposes in the intestinal and liver tissues. Thus the metabolism of glucose and amino acids in intestinal and liver tissues was investigated with multicatheterized lactating dairy cows. In conclusion, increased absorption of glucose from the small intestine increased the amount of glucose available for milk production and thus increased the glucogenic status. In contrast, was the amount of amino acids available for milk production not affected by increased glucose absorption from the small intestine. The present results indicate that feeding bypass starch to dairy cows does not enhance the protein utilization by reducing the intestinal and liver use of amino acids.
