Eating healthily is unquestioned advice during pregnancy, as mothers seek to avoid nutrient deficiencies and health issues for themselves and their infants.
The pressures of calving were the motivator for seaweed innovation company AgriSea to develop their latest animal health formulation, a supplement that prepares dairy cows for calving and the increased stress of this time.
The result is Fortress+ Dairy, a seaweed and terrestrial plant formulation used to reduce oxidative stress and improve antioxidant transfer from birth cows to calves.
For more than two decades, many New Zealand farmers have shared anecdotal benefits of AgriSea's Animal Health nutrition, which is a potent liquid seaweed extract.
Scientific evidence is now backing this up, demonstrating how seaweed combined with terrestrial plants in AgriSea's unique fermented formula positively impacts dairy cow health.
AgriSea recently undertook independent scientific trials at Lincoln University Pastoral Livestock Production Lab under Professor of Livestock Production and Agricultural Systems, Pablo Gregorini and his former PhD student Dr Matt Beck (nowadays USDA-ARS scientist) to test any notable differences between the AgriSea animal health tonic, Fortress+ Dairy and a control (water).
Key questions in the research were what is the right amount to administer, what impact does this have on the animal, their milk quality, production and the receiving environment, if any.
Nutritional status plays a role in oxidative stress, linked with illness including mastitis, metritis, hypocalcaemia, and retained placenta in animals transitioning from dry to lactating stages. In growing livestock it is linked with bovine respiratory disease.
Oxidative stress is a state of imbalance between oxidants and antioxidants - oxidants being the natural by-products of the conversion of food into energy.
For cows, like humans, meeting balanced dietary requirements provides hedonic (pleasure) wellbeing and eudemonic (relaxed purpose) wellbeing. Dietary choice provides livestock with amino acids, vitamins, phlorotannins and carbohydrates, proteins and fats.
In the typical monoculture ryegrass of New Zealand pastoral farms, this diversity is - as the name mono suggests - lacking.
Fortress+ Dairy underwent multiple experiments to determine how it influenced ruminant health, animal productivity, environmental impacts (CH4 & urinary N) and the foraging ecology of young stock.
The final of these experiments determined the effect of two of AgriSea's products: AgriSea Fortress+ Dairy and AgriSea Animal Nutrition versus a control, on three herds of lactating dairy cows, measuring milk production, dry matter intake, diet digestibility, N excretion and CH4.
Three days post-partum, those on the Fortress+ Dairy versus control had 18% lower concentrations of N in urine and far greater antioxidant levels as well as a 26% increase of nutrient supply to the cow in terms of total volatile fatty acids, important in the production of milk by dairy cows.1
"Ultimately, these extract products provide a promising means of enhancing transition dairy cows' health, while reducing their environmental impacts in terms of UN excretion," the authors concluded.
AgriSea training and development manager Murray McEwan says there is a lot happening to your cows in winter and it's key to plan ahead, with the energy requirement of a cow and growing fetus increasing a great deal as you'd expect of a mother in calf.
"The science shows Fortress+ Dairy is a powerful seaweed based nutritional additive that's great for a transitioning cow's diet. Hormones and a growing fetus increase a cow's energy requirements by up to 100% during the last three weeks of pregnancy. A healthy gut biome is needed to digest and transfer that feed energy to the cow. A healthy gut biome will also help with the metabolic and oxidative stressors that suppress the high performance asked of a cow during this time."
He says the time of lactation also coincides with other environmental stressors, like growing herd dynamics, feed changes, weather and altered daily routines (e.g. pre-mating and mating).
"Again, Fortress+ Dairy was found to improve antioxidant status of the cow and improve rumen fermentation."
Fortress+ Dairy is available now at your local Farm Source store. For more information and to find out if Fortress+ Dairy is the right product for your farm, talk to your local Farm Source Technical Sales Rep.
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1 Beck, Mathew. 2020. Dietary phytochemical diversity to enhance health, welfare and production of grazing ruminants, while reducing environmental impact.
Article supplied by Agrisea.