In dairy farming, managing cow health and productivity, especially during the prefresh period, is crucial. The most common type of prefresh diet fed today is a negative dietary cation anion difference (-DCAD) diet. This diet is designed to address health issues like hypocalcemia (milk fever) and enhance the cows’ overall well-being while preparing her for her next lactation. This is done by focusing on manipulating the balance of positively charged minerals, cations like potassium and sodium (K and Na) and negatively charged mineral, anions like chloride and sulfur (Cl and S).
The goal of the diet is to mildly acidify, or lower the blood pH, pre-calving to prevent milk fever. Acidifying the blood helps the cow mobilize calcium from bones and improve calcium absorption, reducing the risk of milk fever. Implementing a DCAD diet involves feeding either a chloride or sulfur-based salt such as ammonia chloride or calcium sulphate, or a highly -DCAD feed product, then making dietary adjustments based on herd health and by monitoring urine pH. Unfortunately, these -DCAD salts and feed products have some palatability issues and can end up reducing the cows dry matter intake (DMI), potentially leading to other prefresh health issues, like ketosis and displaced abomasum (DA).
RumaWAY® LAUNCH eliminates the palatability issues of a DCAD diet because it uses molasses as the carrier for the -DCAD salts. Field studies have shown that when feeding LAUNCH we typically observe a 2-4 lbs. increase in DMI because of the enhanced palatability of the molasses being added to the diet. The increased DMI has led to better overall transition health and improved take off milk production.
Another advantage of RumaWAY® LAUNCH over the traditional -DCAD dry mineral and feed products is a more consistent intake. Most prefresh rations are high in forage and tend to be on the dry side, making it easier for a cow to sort the diet and to not get the correct amount of minerals to properly -DCAD the diet. This leads to higher-than-expected urine pHs and inconsistent fresh cow health and production results. With LAUNCH, the molasses carrier helps to ensure an even distribution of the -DCAD minerals across the diet, leading to more consistent urine pHs while the stickiness of the molasses also reduces the cow’s overall ability to sort the ration. This combination of consistent nutrient intake and reduced sorting is what leads to better fresh cow health and performance.
By Westway Dairy Technical Team
Dr. Andy Mueller
Westway Feed Products
