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Seasonal Reminders from QLF

February 11, 2022

Lisa Davis, MS

Dairy Product Manager

lisa@qlf.com

Lisa Davis,MS – QLF Dairy Product Manager

Starch availability / fermentability. Ensiled high moisture corn and corn silage are fully fermented, and starch availability is “speeding up” in the rumen.  This can provide extra energy to the rumen microbes, but also can lead to potential acidosis.  Sub-optimal rumen pH can reduce fiber digestibility, microbial protein production and DMI.  As a result, milk and component product can decline, reducing cow profitability.

· Reduce dietary starch, and adding sugars from QLF helps maintain fermentable carbohydrate supply in the rumen. When fed at recommended levels, research has shown that supplemental sugar, although rapidly available to rumen microbes, does not have a negative impact on rumen pH.  Feeding 5-7% added sugar from molasses-based liquid feeds (6.75 – 8 % total sugar in the diet) helps optimize microbial protein production, forage digestion, milk, and component production.  Delivering urea through QLF offers rapidly available nitrogen also, to help enhance microbial protein.  Also, remember that QLF molasses-based liquid feeds also help reduce ration sorting, which enhances fiber intakes, rumen efficiency, and milk fat production.  With current milk component prices, maximizing milk fat and protein production helps improve cow profitability!

Feed inventories – is there enough forage available until new crop feed is harvested? Have some dry feed commodities decreased in availability recently?  Are diets changing frequently due to feed and forage availability caused by current market fluctuations?  Frequent diet changes can reduce rumen efficiency and result in erratic DMI.  Feeding 4-5 lbs of QLF improves provides a consistent source of rapidly available carbohydrate and nitrogen to enhance rumen efficiency.  QLF also enhances diet palatability, to encourage intakes during times of changing diet composition.  Also, if high quality forages need to be conserved for stretching to new crop availability, remember that sugars and nitrogen from QLF can help improve digestibility of low quality forages too.  This helps maintain microbial protein production, passage rates, and DMI when lower quality forages are fed.

TMR Feeding quality: As the weather warms up, yeasts in fermented feeds can “wake up”, leading to potential concerns with intakes and rumen efficiency when cattle are fed high-yeast feeds.  Mycotoxin production from molds in stored feeds may occur also.  Optimizing rumen efficiency during the spring warm-up is key to maximizing milk and component production.  Remember that sugars & protein from QLF help improve microbial protein production & DMI.  Also, if TMR preservation is needed, QLF offers Kemin’s Myco Curb or Ultra Curb for general TMR preservation or yeast challenge, respectively.

In summary, QLF dairy supplements provide valuable benefits to help maximize milk and component production in early 2022!

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