Acid buff vs limestone flour

[Chips]

Having a nightmare with cows crashing their rumination and then in turn their yield , spoke with vet originally who recomended feeding limestone flour as it sounds like SARA, so borrowed a couple of bags and cows recovered , then my feed company recomended acid buff as a better alterantive , so moved to this and yields kept rising to 30 litres but then bang rumination dropped from 600 to 400 and milk to 24 litres ! Put more straw in diet , already having a lot of hay and cows recover but about every 4 days they crash again ! Nutrionist say diet looks fine and so am wondering should I have carried on with Limestone flour @ 200g/cow instead of this acid buff at 80grams which more expensive and doesn't seem to be working

 

[SolwayFarmer]

Sounds like you need to look at your ration!

 

[dinderleat]

Having a nightmare with cows crashing their rumination and then in turn their yield , spoke with vet originally who recomended feeding limestone flour as it sounds like SARA, so borrowed a couple of bags and cows recovered , then my feed company recomended acid buff as a better alterantive , so moved to this and yields kept rising to 30 litres but then bang rumination dropped from 600 to 400 and milk to 24 litres ! Put more straw in diet , already having a lot of hay and cows recover but about every 4 days they crash again ! Nutrionist say diet looks fine and so am wondering should I have carried on with Limestone flour @ 200g/cow instead of this acid buff at 80grams which more expensive and doesn't seem to be working

Don’t think you would be feeding lots of starchy products and meal so more than likely some type of winter dysentery, any birds about?

 

[Werzle]

Giving it time to mix and chop, putting fibre in the diets no good unless its chopped to the correct length. Good vet once told me most of the problems on dairy farms are human error, basics not done day in day out. Days like weekends where feeds werent fed correctly or stock went hungry/dirty, not checked etc.

 

[Chips]

All my silage cuts are ph 4.5 and above but will get a nutritionist here asap but was already using a good one but not independant. Some birds here but not many and I keep scaring them off and manure all seems good.
Common things are common but I'm really struggling with this one

 

[Chips]

While milk per cow goes down 4 litres with each crash and then back up FPCM moves up and down less than 1 kg so probably not costing as much as it looks !

 

[Stuart1]

Are you feeding wheat? I’ve stopped this few years feeding wheat, too sore on cows but then I’m pushing them hard on a high concentrate diet. How much hay/straw are you feeding? Going to an independent nutritionist was the best thing I ever done. Should have done it years ago.

 

[O'Reilly]

Not mycotoxins?

 

[Chips]

We feed a mycotoxin binder as a matter of course , Mix is 200kg 25%p blend 300kg rolled oats , 1 bale of hay ,1 bale arable silage and 3 bales of clover/grass silage , so 20% of forage is mature but well made hay , then fed to yield in robot. These crashes all began when we moved to a 20% cake in the robot on guidance from the nutritionist as the cows were not milking well before. This made a huge increase in yield until they crash. Vet said the only thing that can cause this is SARA hence we put limestone flour and then acid buff in. However manure is reasonable consitancy and Bf/P ratio is circa 1.5 which is the oppossite end from what you would expect for SARA. The robot plots every cows BF/P ratio and nearly none are under one with most either between 1.0 and 1.5 or above. We did get a couple of mild ketosis cases which the ratio would predict but the vet think these are secondary due to rumination crash

 

[Stuart1]

What’s milk urea’s? Seems you’re feeding plenty of forage and doing things well. 20% seems high in the robots

 

[davidroberts30]

We feed a mycotoxin binder as a matter of course , Mix is 200kg 25%p blend 300kg rolled oats , 1 bale of hay ,1 bale arable silage and 3 bales of clover/grass silage , so 20% of forage is mature but well made hay , then fed to yield in robot. These crashes all began when we moved to a 20% cake in the robot on guidance from the nutritionist as the cows were not milking well before. This made a huge increase in yield until they crash. Vet said the only thing that can cause this is SARA hence we put limestone flour and then acid buff in. However manure is reasonable consitancy and Bf/P ratio is circa 1.5 which is the oppossite end from what you would expect for SARA. The robot plots every cows BF/P ratio and nearly none are under one with most either between 1.0 and 1.5 or above. We did get a couple of mild ketosis cases which the ratio would predict but the vet think these are secondary due to rumination crash

what's the analysis of the 20% cake?

 

[Chips]

What’s milk urea’s? Seems you’re feeding plenty of forage and doing things well. 20% seems high in the robots

Ureas 180 to 220, First time we've fed higher than an 18% but cows were not milking well at all on an 18% so nutrtionist looked at diet when cows came in and moved to a 20% which worked very well climbing up to 30kg/day but then all this started , still averaging more than on the 18% even with the rumination crashing .
Upped the acid buff this time to 110gram/cow to see if this helps

 

[Wesley]

Out of interest why was the protein of the cake raised rather than the mix if they thought they were short of protein?
How much do you feed through the robot?

 

[Chips]

Average 5kg in the robot, I guess the protien upped there as fed to yield

 

[FarmerWasty]

Sounds cake related. How much are they getting in one visit? I reckon the cake is probs too pokey and has too much fizz in it. Full of wheat by any chance?

 

[Chips]

3kgs max per visit but very few get that and whole herd crash at the same time

 

[davidroberts30]

what's the analysis of the 20% cake?

3kgs max per visit but very few get that and whole herd crash at the same time

 

[Blue.]

Having a nightmare with cows crashing their rumination and then in turn their yield , spoke with vet originally who recomended feeding limestone flour as it sounds like SARA, so borrowed a couple of bags and cows recovered , then my feed company recomended acid buff as a better alterantive , so moved to this and yields kept rising to 30 litres but then bang rumination dropped from 600 to 400 and milk to 24 litres ! Put more straw in diet , already having a lot of hay and cows recover but about every 4 days they crash again ! Nutrionist say diet looks fine and so am wondering should I have carried on with Limestone flour @ 200g/cow instead of this acid buff at 80grams which more expensive and doesn't seem to be working

feed company are only recommending acid buff because they make more out of it,limestone flour is cheap as chips in comparison.

 

[bar718]

Is the cow muck consistent. Does it go from a normal stiffness to loose then back again over a few days or just stay the same consistency as that is a good tell tale sign if SARA.
Also can you quietly watch the cows on an evening when they are not being disturbed, preferably without them realising you are there and see how much tale swinging there is. If all the cows are showing no signs of tale swishing then one cow starts and it is like a ripple effect through the cows and they all start swishing their tails as if they are suddenly surrounded by flies this is also a tell tale sign if SARA.

 

[Chips]

Spent a couple of hours with vet last night and he's a bit perplexed too, doesn't think SARA now. Trying wetting diet, ramen fill is great and cows look good just ups and down in rumination.