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The effects of feeding a polymer gel to dairy cows in early lactation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 November 2017

P.C. Garnsworthy
P.C. Garnsworthy*
Affiliation:
University of Nottingham Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences, Sutton Bonington Campus, Loughborough LE12 5RD
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Extract

A polymer of acrylic acid has been used continuously on a number of dairy farms throughout the UK for the past five years. The polymer is fed as a gel and absorbs 100 times its own weight of water. Commercial farmers report that the polymer allows them to reduce concentrate allowances whilst maintaining milk yields. The results of an experiment with grazing cows in late lactation were reported to this meeting in 1988. It was found that the polymer did not affect milk yield but caused a significant increase in the rate at which cows laid down body reserves.

There is a lack of experimental evidence to support the commercial findings for cows in early lactation and little information on the mode of action. The main experiment reported here was conducted to investigate the effects of feeding a polymer gel to dairy cows in early lactation and in vitro studies were performed to investigate the mode of action.

Type
Dairy Production
Information
Proceedings of the British Society of Animal Production (1972) , Volume 1993: Winter meeting , March 1993 , pp. 95
Copyright
Copyright © The British Society of Animal Production 1993

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