Helping assess feed quality to optimise animal performance and profitability

With dairy producer margins under ever increasing pressure, a focus on feed efficiencies and making the most out of home-grown forages is crucial. Therefore, understanding the baseline of rations and forage quality represents a key parameter to maximising profitability.

“Purchasing decisions can be supported, and feeds formulated closer to specification, by applying feed intelligence and understanding the variations in raw materials,” explains Trident MicroNutri technical services manager Angharad Loveluck.

“Near Infra-Red (NIR) spectroscopy services provide accurate predictions of the nutritional components of feedstuffs, to help optimise diet formulation and ensure quality control,” she adds.

Monitoring variability

As a full service NIR provider, Trident MicroNutri can help identify inefficiencies across the production process, by monitoring variability and controlling the quality of raw materials and feed.

The Handheld NIR (HHNIR), developed and powered by AB Vista, enables Trident MicroNutri to provide flexible, in-situ analysis, with results shown instantly on the device and synchronised with a web portal for viewing and sharing more widely. The presentation of data on the screen can also be personalised and branded.

The handheld devices use the same NIR technology as used in AB Vista’s laboratories. The calibrations have been developed over 25 years, incorporating more than 400,000 global reference samples and more than 4 million spectra plus reference values, resulting in a robust calibration database that is constantly developing.

New calibration

“Traditionally used to predict forage nutrient content quickly and accurately, a new HHNIR calibration has been developed that can predict the dry matter (DM), crude protein (CP), neutral detergent fibre (NDF) and organic matter (OM) content of dairy manure,” continues Ms Loveluck.

“The results of the HHNIR scan are not to give an indication as to ‘good or bad’ manure nutrient content. However, by assessing the differences in manure analysis, we believe we can determine any changes in efficiency of feed utilisation, based on dietary changes, or the introduction of ruminal digestion aids such as buffers, live yeasts and ration pre-treatments such as Vista Pre-T,” she adds.

Forage pre-treatment

Vista Pre-T is a forage pre-treatment that works to make the cellulose and hemicellulose fibre fractions more accessible to the ruminal fibre-digesting microorganisms, by roughening and creating pits on the surface of the feed material, to create more adhesion sites for the fibre digestors.

“By reducing the lag time to digestion, the rumen’s natural ability to digest forage is raised, which increases the feeding value of the existing ration so we can expect more from less, or increases in feed efficiency,” explains Ms Loveluck.

Vista Pre-T boosts the rumen’s natural ability to digest forage and allows nutritionists and producers to use forage more efficiently. Through smarter use of forage, there is less pressure on the pocket and the environment as the energy content of the ration is increased, keeping feed costs down and feed efficiency improved.

Improve efficiencies

Accurate and timely analysis across all of these parameters allows for improved feed management and better monitoring of feed quality, resulting in improved animal nutrition and overall herd health and performance.

“Our HHNIR devices and services can help improve efficiencies, from understanding forage quality and helping to make buying decisions, to introducing ruminal digestion aids or ration pre-treatments,” concludes Ms Loveluck.