Oils in grass/silage

[Crusty]

Anybody know what causes high oils in grass and grass silage? Cheers

 

[Great In Grass]

The little I know about it is that the Lipids (oil) content of the grass is unique to each grass variety.

To increase Lipids content at silage making rapid wilting will increase their levels.

 

[Crusty]

So the best way to reduce oils is plant breeding and slow wilting?

 

[llamedos]

Naturally occurring lipids in the grass and when silage is fast wilted it is increased, I think.

 

[llamedos]

So the best way to reduce oils is plant breeding and slow wilting?

Why would you want to reduce it?

 

[Great In Grass]

So the best way to reduce oils is plant breeding and slow wilting?

Suppose so, but why would you want to do that as you will be reducing the Omega 3 & 9 content which people who sell on pasture fed beef use as one of their selling points?

 

[Crusty]

Oil levels in dairy cow diets suppress fat and we're on a manufacturing contract

 

[More to life]

I would suggest you look at the cows first they convert the grass

 

[Maxxum-man]

Maybe don't feed your 1st cut in such a panic [emoji12]

 

[trexcf]

Aren't oils added to diets to increase energy which increases milk protein? So protein will drop even if fats improve

 

[Clay52]

Grass breeding has increased fats in grass because of the race to get more energy in grass.

Not necessarily a bad thing. It's generally higher quality grass has more fat.

We only have issues in spring. Fat levels can be high in grass that combined with low fibre levels and can have a few cow health issues and very low fat test.

The problem with too much fat is it coats the particles in the rumen and doesn't allow the rumen bugs to fully breakdown the feed. Something else happens with certain fats as well but I can't remember it at the moment.

 

[betweenthelines]

Oil levels in dairy cow diets suppress fat and we're on a manufacturing contract

I think you need to stop talking to feed reps!

 

[Crusty]

I think you need to stop talking to feed reps!

All I know is we had high oil levels in the grass samples pre silaging, and I've just changed half of the silage were feeding for 1st cut and fats dropped from 4.2 to 3.75 although we did gain nearly a litre of milk but I didn't change anything else in the diet soooo

 

[Crusty]

Should also say I've taken the 1st cut back out and fats are already back up to 4 on the next milk sample and milk protein has stayed exactly the same at 3.55

 

[jerseycowsman]

Should also say I've taken the 1st cut back out and fats are already back up to 4 on the next milk sample and milk protein has stayed exactly the same at 3.55

I'm not a chemist but I do know that milk butterfat usually responds pretty quick to diet changes, but milk protein takes at least a fortnight

 

[More to life]

Should also say I've taken the 1st cut back out and fats are already back up to 4 on the next milk sample and milk protein has stayed exactly the same at 3.55

How long was this grass in the pit was it stable secondly with the extra liter did your solids production actually fall?

 

[Clay52]

In spring when our fat test wants to drop. I reduce grain and give 2kg of a good oat silage. Doesn't work with poorer silage because the cows won't eat it with spring grass there.

Keeps the test and liters up and annoys the feed rep because I don't go for any of the hocus pocus additives.

 

[Crusty]

How long was this grass in the pit was it stable secondly with the extra liter did your solids production actually fall?

The silage was stable, it had been made 3weeks earlier I'll post the analysis as soon as I can. And total solids fell from 2.41 to 2.34 and financially we'd be 1000 pounds worse off per month

 

[Crusty]

In spring when our fat test wants to drop. I reduce grain and give 2kg of a good oat silage. Doesn't work with poorer silage because the cows won't eat it with spring grass there.

Keeps the test and liters up and annoys the feed rep because I don't go for any of the hocus pocus additives.

We're not feeding any protected fats or any yeast but only have grass silage available, this is on cows that are fully housed but we do have some cows grazing but there diet hasn't changed but obviously grass can be hugely variable.