Rfm's

honwell

New Member
How do you know if the DCAD was too low if you don't check the cows. Feeds are variable.

20 or even 30 or more days on negative DCAD hasn't been shown to cause problems so it's not likely that. Ideally you want them on it for more than 20 days.

Our vets advice was the urine pH is not particularly reliable indicator of the dcad levels in the diet, especially when you are feeding pasture in part of the diet. They were getting a couple of kgs of irrigated well fertilised rye grass so again I think the chances of the dcad being too low (and can you tell me how low is too low?) are slim. Also if that were the case we should have seen cases across the board not just those that calved after being on the transition diet too long?

Anyway the whole point of my original comment was to say we had experienced something similar to your cows that had milk fever but didnt respond appropriately to treatment. It wasnt to get into a debate about what was the problem and whether we had worked it up properly. For us making sure they dont overstay their welcome in the springer herd fixed the problem, and if we have similar cases in future I can guarantee (if they arent a sick cow with secondary milk fever) they will be cows that have been on a low dcad diet too long.
 
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Clay52

Member
Location
Outer Space
Our vets advice was the urine pH is not particularly reliable indicator of the dcad levels in the diet, especially when you are feeding pasture in part of the diet. They were getting a couple of kgs of irrigated well fertilised rye grass so again I think the chances of the dcad being too low (and can you tell me how low is too low?) are slim. Also if that were the case we should have seen cases across the board not just those that calved after being on the transition diet too long?

Urine is a good indicator for negative DCAD. It's the best we have to go on, easy and works well. If you are feeding for a negative DCAD to get fresh cow benifits there is alway the chance that it could be too low because it doesn't take much lower to cause a problem. Feed test alone are not enough to go on. I have heard some university researchers say they don't recommend feeding negative DCAD if you don't check urine ph because the risk of stuffing it up.

Like I said the research and personal experience says there is no issue feeding negative DCAD out to 30 and over.

If you disagree that is fine. I'm just giving my opinion. My cows average 25-30 days on it. I have the heifers on it for 35 days.
 

honwell

New Member
I just dont think you can say it is safe to feed a low dcad diet greater than 30 days. You say its your opinion validated by research, I say I cant find a good study that proves its safe to feed that long. And clinical experience in the field with our own cows and clients cows leads me to believe you cant feed it that long and not have repercussions. Trying to create chronic metabolic acidosis in any species long term is not something I think people should take lightly.
 
Regarding RFM's, we had one calving with 20% plus RFM's,tearing our hair out, did bloods and found that Selenium levels were almost non existent. We now inject Selenium at the start of calving and have cut the problem by 95%, exceptions being the odd down cow.
 

farmer JD

Member
My ph urine tests on the cows yesterday were high alkaline , I'm already on 150 g mag chloride going too feed calcium sulphate at 120 grams they are on maize 12 kg and haylage 8 kg and after that ad lib haylage the haylage is old mature low in potassium any ideas ?
 

Sylution

Member
Location
Carmarthenshire
Reading all this I am glad i have run of the mill 7000ltr cows. All I do to dry cows is strip graze mature grass for autumn calvers. And big bale silage ad lib for winter calvers. All dry cows also get 2 bolus of downland alltrace minerals. Or something like that name. Never get much milk fever but all cows get reviva powder and 2 buckets (30 litres) water after calving. And 4th calvers + get a calcium bolus. Quite simple really. But I know it would not work with the high milk yeilding herds where transition diets becime crucial.
 

farmer JD

Member
I was told today if you feed a dcad diet for longer than 24 days before calving your going to get problems I was feeding them32 days before calving as some were a bit thin it's ok too feed concentrate it's just the anionic salts
 

Clay52

Member
Location
Outer Space

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

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Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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