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Livestock
Dairy Farming
Protein levels in grazed grass
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<blockquote data-quote="ollie989898" data-source="post: 8176894" data-attributes="member: 54866"><p>Low N may be the cause, though a shortage of other nutrients may also be to blame for low protein levels.</p><p></p><p>There is generally a lot of protein in grass silage, but much of it is crude protein, which will be raw material for the biota in the rumen. The cow herself will not see all of this crude protein by any means- the bugs will have noshed it before she gets a look in.</p><p></p><p>Crude protein acts as the 'throttle pedal' in a cow. Everyone is familiar with feeding their cow some mega diet all winter only to see the milk output shoot up the second cows get let out in spring. The more crude protein you feed, the more the bugs party and to a general extent the faster fermentation in the rumen occurs- more bugs means a bigger workforce to recruit to digest all the incoming fibre. The trick is to make sure that the cow is fed enough fermentable energy to keep up with the bugs demands and also has a diet which looks after her demands as well. Which is why, in theory, lower protein diets are fed to cows and the digestible fibre level is bumped up. For example: you would switch out maize gluten from a diet in favour of sugarbeet instead. In energy terms, there probably isn't much difference between the two. The difference is in their crude protein and digestible fibre fractions to slow the bugs down a bit but sustain milk production all the same.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="ollie989898, post: 8176894, member: 54866"] Low N may be the cause, though a shortage of other nutrients may also be to blame for low protein levels. There is generally a lot of protein in grass silage, but much of it is crude protein, which will be raw material for the biota in the rumen. The cow herself will not see all of this crude protein by any means- the bugs will have noshed it before she gets a look in. Crude protein acts as the 'throttle pedal' in a cow. Everyone is familiar with feeding their cow some mega diet all winter only to see the milk output shoot up the second cows get let out in spring. The more crude protein you feed, the more the bugs party and to a general extent the faster fermentation in the rumen occurs- more bugs means a bigger workforce to recruit to digest all the incoming fibre. The trick is to make sure that the cow is fed enough fermentable energy to keep up with the bugs demands and also has a diet which looks after her demands as well. Which is why, in theory, lower protein diets are fed to cows and the digestible fibre level is bumped up. For example: you would switch out maize gluten from a diet in favour of sugarbeet instead. In energy terms, there probably isn't much difference between the two. The difference is in their crude protein and digestible fibre fractions to slow the bugs down a bit but sustain milk production all the same. [/QUOTE]
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Protein levels in grazed grass
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