The importance of proper nutrition for lactating dairy cows is shown to be most important prior to three weeks before calving and three weeks post-calving. As this is the most stressful time in a cow’s life, relevant research is reviewed and the beneficial effect of proper nutrition is presented in this newsletter (pdf 532.04 kB) .

The Spring Salt and Trace Minerals (jpeg 56.68 kB) newsletter features a discussion about mineral imbalance in livestock feeding. While manifestations cloak themselves like other nutritional disorders, parasitic infestations or bacterial and viral infections, the solution is entirely different. University of Illinois animal nutrition professor Larry Berger provides a systematic approach to identify the right problem.

Grass tetany is a complex disease that causes significant economic losses for livestock producers every year. Like putting together a puzzle, more and more of the pieces are coming together so that we can understand the true causes of this disease. What we once thought was primarily a magnesium deficiency, is now recognized to be a combination of excess nitrates and potassium in combination with inadequate salt consumption. Increasing sodium consumption improves magnesium absorption and nitrate excretion, both keys to preventing grass tetany. Read the full article by Dr. Larry Berger in the new Fall 2008 issue of Salt and Trace Minerals newsletter.

In a world of competing imperatives, it is difficult to satisfy everyone. However, Dr. Larry Berger describes a management system that is doing just that. He believes that the weight-gain efficiencies of grain-based feed lots and the ecological and agronomic benefits of natural grazing don't have to be mutually exclusive approaches. The ideas behind these feeding system can be combined into a management feeding approach that takes the best of each. It's called rotational grazing and is described in detail in Larry Berger's article, "Salt and Rotational Grazing ," which appears in the July, 2007 edition of the Angus Journal.

Rotational or management-intensive grazing, can increase beef production per acre by 30% when compared to traditional grazing. All it takes is good, hands-on management and a bit of common sense technique. Rotational grazing requires the division of large pastures to several smaller paddocks which are grazed in short (2-4 day) intervals before moving the cattle on to the next paddock. When 10 or more paddocks are involved, grazing cycle repeats itself at roughly 30-day intervals.

The benefits are self evident, but we'll list them anyway. First of all there is increased beef production per acre, then more uniform grazing which prevents bare spots, then the animal waste is more evenly distributed across the paddock and finally, the improved nutrient recycling increases forage production, which brings us back to increased beef production per acre. Pretty nifty, isn't it?

But it doesn't stop there, because cattle that graze lush forages have an increased appetite for salt. In fact, they will usually consume twice as much salt as those fed high cost, high-concentrate diets and salt is an excellent carrier of essential micronutrients as well as ionophores such as monensin. Feeding studies report that self-feeding a salt-monensin-supplement gave the same daily gain as hand-feeding the monensin supplement without salt. Salt, the most reliable intake regulator can be made even better when combined with monensin leading to increased beef production. But, it doesn't stop there either.

A deeper knowledge of cattle and their grazing habits prompted the use of salt feeders as management tools to accomplish other objectives aside from meeting the cattle's nutritional requirements. For instance, fly populations are a major challenge to grazing animals. The Noble Foundation found that combining the salt feeder and cattle rub in the same tool, was one of the most effective ways to control flies. Recent research show that weight gains were increased 27 lb. per head for weaned calves and by an average of 17% in yearling grazing cattle when flies were controlled.

To sum up, rational hands-on grazing management, using salt and rotational grazing leads to increased beef production per acre - or did we say that before?

You can read Larry Berger's latest Salt and Trace Minerals Newsletter, "Factors Affecting the Trace Mineral Status of Feeder Calves ," along with a full library of practical nutrition and feeding papers at the Salt Institute salt and trace minerals in animal nutrition

Western Australia has more than 2.5 million acres of severely-affected saline soil and has instituted a vigorous program to make better use of this land. While other countries, including the United States, don't have the problem to the same degree, increasingly saline soils will be a growing problem in the future and we would all do well to closely follow the developments in Australia.

Common saltbush is a grayish-white shrub that grows to be about 2 to 3 feet tall. The common saltbush is often mistaken for "sagebrush" although it is actually related to the "tumbleweed", or Russian thistle. It gets its name from the salty deposits on its leaves. When the saltbush takes up water from salty, alkaline soils, it removes and deposits the excess salt in bladders on its leaves. This keeps the salt away from the plant cells and also attracts moisture in the air for the plant to absorb. When the leaves are eaten or fall off, the extra salt is removed from the plant.

Common saltbush is sometimes called "cattle spinach". It is very important as a browse plant for cattle and sheep because it is a great source of minerals, especially salt, which they need. As described in this week's edition of Australian Food News , Dianne Mayberry, a PhD student from the Cooperative Research Centre for Plant-based Management of Dryland Salinity has thrown her energies into making digestion of saltbush by sheep more efficient so that it can provide far greater commercial value.

This idea may be worthwhile considering in remediation of some roadside soils routinely impacted by saline runoff.

A number of years ago, I was involved with a micro-encapsulation research program related to increased wool grow in sheep. The idea was to micro-encapsulate methionine so that it could survive the conditions in the front end of the rumen and be incorporated into the digestion taking place in the abomasum (the fourth compartment of the stomach of a ruminant). When digested at that point, methionine was shown to contribute to a significant increase in wool production.

The latest research reports coming out from down under indicates that such a costly and complex system may not be necessary to increase wool production.

The May 14, 2007 issue of the AllAboutFeed Newsletter indicates that increased dietary salt can increase wool growth across a range of sheep diets. These results suggest that increasing salt in the feed ration may be a viable strategy to increase wool production efficiency.

In trials carried out over 2 months, 18 month old Merino wethers were individually penned and offered one of l6 different diets. The feeds were formulated with four levels of added sodium chloride (nil, 7%, 14%, and 21%) and four levels of organic matter digestibility (55%, 62%, 69%, and 76%). Treatment feeds were offered ad libidum for seven weeks and at maintenance during the final week. Researchers found that clean wool growth, corrected for digestible organic matter intake, increased by 16%, 18% and 27% as added sodium chloride was increased by 7%, 14% and 2l% respectively. On the other hand, liveweight gain was reduced from increasing dietary sodium chloride, mostly as a result of reduced feed intake at the higher salt levels.

While higher levels of dietary salt may be favourable for wool production efficiency, the decrease in the feed intake of sheep needs careful management for commercial livestock production.

Now, if the same mechanism worked for hair, we might have a highly palatable cure for baldness.