	Lakeland Scottish Feeds & Services	Newsletter
	Evolution
Issue No. 80	January 2012

Happy New Year!

There is no doubt that as time goes on everything slowly changes. Sometimes the changes can be huge, like a new building or some extra land but most changes are less obvious, like the effects of a breeding program or a change in the feeding system. Whatever the change we need to adjust our response or we miss the opportunity at our peril.

Just before Christmas I found myself sitting in a meeting room in Birmingham looking at some very interesting data on how yeast actually works and how the current UK yeasts got their approval. I thought that it was only fair that I should share this with you.
The item below effectively shows that you should check the bag tickets carefully because so far we have found one that is supplying 30 times less than its EEC approved trial data!
Some yeasts need to be more concentrated than others because the only way the trials could give a result was to increase the concentration!

This year forage supplies in the North West of England and South West of Scotland tend to be pretty
short so what can be done? We look at a solution.

The NMR InterHerd + software allows access to some useful analysis of health and fertility status. We are currently part of a select group of consultants looking at providing an automatically updated diagnostic report, helping us to feed more accurately to cater for animal welfare and production.

Last year we launched F1 Absolute mineral buckets. The buckets have proved popular and easy to use in the more extensive livestock systems. Reggie said we should do a good old fashioned promotion for early orders so we are giving a fair discount on the range until the end of January.

How should we group cows and why? It probably sounds obvious but I suspect not since many farmers work on different groupings.

Feedstuff markets are always pretty volatile and the New Year has brought some pretty mixed responses.

I hope that you find this issue worth the time. Please call me if you want to talk about any of the items.

Yeast. Are you getting enough?

Yeast has always been one of those additives on the “not sure” category for many farmers. This article should erase any doubts you may have and put you firmly back in the Alltech camp for your choice of product.

Yeast works by converting sugar into three things:

Alcohol
Gas (mainly Carbon Dioxide)
More yeast

But it can’t do all three at the same time.

Lots of air and sugar will make more yeast
No air and sugar will make alcohol and carbon dioxide
A little air and sugar will just make carbon dioxide.

The common factors are air and sugar, but the rumen is not very stable so the Air, Sugar and Acidity will all vary through the day.

Yeasts love the stuff that rumens hate, ie, sugar and air.

Fibre digesting bacteria work better with no oxygen and they hate acidity. If Rumen Ph drops below 6.2 they go dormant or die!

Yeasacc 1026 has been proved to have two distinct modes of action:

Fibre degradation by oxygen scavenging.
Acid reduction

Yeasacc is the only yeast with proofs for both modes of action.
Levucell has proofs for acid reduction but makes no claims for fibre degradation (oxygen scavenging).
Actisaf has no data on acid reduction but is oxygen scavenging.

The latest trial by Alltech and Dunbia (meats) shows photographic evidence as to why we get better live weight gains (and milk production) when Yeasacc is used. The surface area for absorption of nutrients on the rumen wall was vastly improved when Yeasacc 1026 was used on what was otherwise an identical diet. It was worth about 36Kg more live-weight gain over the trial period.

Lakeland Scottish Dairy Industry News - Yeast supplements rumen

The table below shows the EU minimum concentrations of colony forming units (cfu’s) of the live yeasts approved for use in the UK.

The main point to note from this table is that Yeasacc is approved at between 10 and 30 times less concentrated than the others. This tells us that it is probably a lot more potent.

Note: Biosprint is at 30 times the concentration and in its latest EFSA trial submission, failed its approval for beef at this level.

	Actisaff/ Biocell	Levucell/ Biotal	Yea-Sacc	Vistacell/ Biosprint
EU registration code	NCYC Sc47	CNCM 1- 1077	CBS 493- 94	MUCL 39885
EU min level cfu/day	1 x 10¹⁰	1 x 10¹⁰	1 x 10⁹	3 x 10¹⁰
cfu per kg needed in farm pack fed at 50g per head per day	2 x 10¹¹	2 x 10¹¹	2 x 10¹⁰	6 x 10¹¹
cfu per kg needed in mineral fed at 100g per head per day	1 x 10¹¹	1 x 10¹¹	1 x 10¹⁰	3 x 10¹¹
cfu per kg needed in mineral fed at 150g per head per day	6.7 x 10¹⁰	6.7 x 10¹⁰	6.7 x 10⁹	2 x 10¹¹
cfu per kg needed in mineral fed at 200g per head per day	5 x 10¹⁰	5 x 10¹⁰	5 x 10⁹	1.5 x 10¹¹
cfu per kg needed in compound fed at 6kg per head per day	1.6 x 10⁹	1.6 x 10⁹	1.6 x 10⁸	5 x 10⁹

Yeasacc 1026 is currently the only yeast strain that has EEC proofs showing increased output by improving feed efficiency.

I know that I have become a bit more cynical as I have got older (who doesn’t), (That’s enough from you Reggie); but when you look at the bigger picture, the fact that over 60% of all the research on yeast originates with Alltech, and they fundamentally have a much stronger proof than any of the other manufactures makes it an obvious choice for anyone buying a performance boosting additive.

F1 Yeast has consistently performed well and our audits show recovery rates at over 100%. There is no specific feed rate for yeast. High output animals need more than low output ones. The dose can be regulated on the basis of appetite and inclusion rate. We can help with optimum feeding programs for yeast. So why not give it a try.

All F1 yeast orders placed in January will be at a reduced price of £35 per bag saving £7 per bag on
RRP. Minimum orders 250Kg.

Stretching Forage Supplies

Farmers faced with ever-tightening forage stocks and / or forages that are too wet this winter are strongly advised to consider adding Rumiluz (Dengie chopped Lucerne Hay) to their rations to stretch forage supplies, help to dry up their rations and prevent the risk of acidosis.

Faced with a shortage of the normal forage replacers and diets based on wet forages, many cows have suffered from poor rumen health, low dry matter intakes and Sub-Acute Rumen Acidosis as a consequence of wet, acidic grass silages and a higher proportion of concentrates and wet brewers and distillers grains in the diet. Chopping and changing between different feeds designed to stretch silage stocks will only add to rumen health problems and cow performance.

One feed that is in good supply is Dengie big baled dried Lucerne which can help complement existing forages, provide a good source of fibre and scratch factor in the diet without dropping its nutrient density and help reduce problems associated with high acid loads in the rumen.

Dengie dried Lucerne is high temperature dried:

88% Dry Matter which will help dry your diet up and increase intakes 17-19% protein.
Provides high quality structural fibre and scratch factor which will open up the diet and help increase the rumination in the cow.
Has a chop length of 2 – 4 cm long which mixes through the TMR easily and cows cannot sort it out like straw.
6.5-7pH which is a natural buffer to acidic or wet silages.
High temperature drying preserves a lot more nutrients than field drying because it doesn’t allow time for natural spoilage organisms like bacteria and fungi to start breaking into the plant tissues and use up the sugars and proteins present in the fresh mown crop.

Incorporating Dengie dried Lucerne will help stretch forage stocks, ensure diet consistency until turnout and promote improved rumen health in the cow.

Lakeland-Scottish has secured a significant discount on the current national price for farmers who order in January to stretch forage stocks. A typical 24 tonne load of Rumiluz will replace around 85 to 100 tonnes of typical to wet silage at 18% protein.

Rumiluz is well known to be very beneficial in most TMR diets at up to 2Kg per head per day and this year it is much better value for money when compared on a dry matter basis to the moist feed alternatives which are expensive and hard to get hold of.

Call me today and we can discuss how using Rumiluz could work for you.

Lakeland Scottish Dairy Industry News - Lucerne Hay Alfalfa

F1 Absolute Mineral Buckets 2012 promotion

The F1 Absolute range is simply the best you can get. It is a no compromise, no corners cut approach to feeing minerals where you want a low labour, reliable way of feeding minerals to animals out on grass or in low maintenance groups.

We recommend placing 1 bucket per 10 to 15 head of cattle depending on age and size. This means that a bucket will typically last around 10 to 12 days per group.

This is a great, low maintenance way of ensuring that the animals are supplemented at grass. My thesis at university was on lameness, and Reggie has just reminded me again that even in those days there was great research to show just how effective mineral supplementation of young stock can be at preventing foot problems in later life. But it’s not just foot problems: a well-developed animal is much more able to withstand the pressures of its productive life. It will have a more developed immune response, it will be more fertile more productive and live longer than weaker less well grown animals It’s a pretty solid case for sticking to supplementation then.

These buckets will do a great job, so if you fancy trying them out please give me or Rick a call today. The range features Pre Calver, High Magnesium, Calf & Beef and Grazing & Fertility buckets. We also have a new Super Ewe bucket.

All orders placed in January 2012 will have a genuine £50 per tonne discount.

F1 Diagnostics and InterHerd +

We are currently working with InterHerd + to launch a diagnostics package based on NMR and CIS data. The package will be available free of charge to Lakeland-Scottish Feeds & Services Customers within the next couple of months.

This service uses your milk record data to diagnose herd and cow status for fertility, and metabolic state.
It is an incredibly useful tool to help to tailor the diet to more accurately reflect the cow’s needs.

The technology can provide so many different analyses that we could spend forever looking at the interpretation so we are currently involved in a select working party to pull together a small number of the most useful ones so that we can provide a more practical package.

The beauty of the system is that it all happens automatically. All we need is your NMR /CIS herd numbers and details and your consent on a form and we can get cracking.
Each month we will receive the reports and after an initial assessment we can decide on any changes
that should be made.

To quote a well know TV advert “Simples”!

If this is of interest to you let me know and we can make a start.

Glycerol and Molasses

The item on glycerol in the last newsletter received quite a lot of comment so I thought I should feature a
quick update in this issue.
There are two more points to make:

1 - Recent research published in the American “Journal of Dairy Science” featured a good field trial looking at the effect of feeding Propylene Glycol (PG) looking at its effect on milk yield and its use to treat cow with subclinical ketosis.

These cows will all have elevated BHB and NEEFA levels in their blood samples.

Those dosed with PG were 1.5 times more likely to resolve their subclinical ketosis and 0.5 times less likely to develop clinical ketosis.
Across the three herds PG treated cows produced 0.69kg/day cow more milk for the first 30 days.
Cows dosed with 300ml PG until blood BHBA dropped below the critical level.

2 - F1 Elevator will do the same job even though it is a blend of PG with Glycerol.
After more experience of feeding F1 Elevator we now recommend that it is top dressed rather than mixed in to the TMR.
Top dressing will normally stimulate a feeding session and as such will dose the product in one feed.

This is important because a bigger hit will do more to stimulate liver function than a trickle feed and once this has been achieved the cow will recover more quickly and increase her appetite more readily. The resulting increase in energy intake will relieve the symptoms of sub clinical ketosis more quickly and get the cow back on track faster.
It’s a bit like a hangover cure, 2 Aspirin will give some relief after about 20 minutes but split into 8 quarters and given over 8 hours it won’t have much of an effect!

F1 Elevator is very cost effective and should be fed at 250ml once a day for 3 weeks before calving and if grouping allows for 3 weeks after calving.

Minerals and Markets

The mineral, trace element and vitamin raw material markets are showing some signs of some stability currently which is good news and in some cases, customers will see prices dropping – although biotin especially has increased in price again.

Di-calcium Phosphate	1% Phosphorous in a mineral supplement now costs around £25.00p but this has at last started to show signs of easing in price with the prospects of Libya resuming world exports after 40 years of Gaddafi.
Feed Grade Urea	Increases in September have shown some signs of weakening but recent rises in the soya market may stabilise the current price
Limestone Flour	Quiet
Calcined Magnesite	Each 1% of Magnesium is currently costing around £7:25p to add but the market has shown a sign of weakening as a new supplier is competing for market share.
Salt	Prices have settled down but remain firm in the UK.
Zinc	Quiet
Manganese	Quiet
Cobalt	Stable
Chelates	Earlier price increases have reduced the commercial differences between suppliers. There may be new competition soon so current rises in price may result in some changes in pursuit of a better deal.
Vitamin E	Costing around £20:00p peer 1000mg/Kg but flat.
Iodine	Calcium Iodate prices remain firm.
Selenium	Quiet
Copper Sulphate	Good sources are in a world of their own currently well over £2000 per tonne but showing signs of falling back.
Biotin	Still firming. Costs £70 per tonne to add 20mg in a 150 gram feed rate. This is 1 pence per cow per day.
Choline	Has increased in price in October but has stayed steady since.

In the last issue I wrote “When you read this it is hard to escape from the argument for total replacement of inorganic Copper, Zinc, Manganese and Selenium. Using less of these minerals in a more targeted way is common practice on many American and European farms, there are no obvious problems and in most cases there are apparent health improvements.
If you want to look at this in more detail, why not give me a call and we can start with a free mineral audit.
These audits may become a mandatory requirement in years to come”.
I still think that it is worth considering this approach to feeding minerals and it is a good time to look at the issue as mineral prices have dropped slightly from December.

Technical E-Mails

If you want to join the growing number of e-mail recipients of this newsletter it’s easy. All you need to do is e-mail me at the following address and we will add you to our group. Sometimes though, we will still send it out with certain stuffers when we think it could be useful.
Thanks jerry@lakelandscottish.co.uk

Feed Market Review

Lakeland Scottish Dairy Industry News - Straight Feeds Harvest Maize Soya Pressed Pulp

It’s a classic weather market situation at the moment with the attention focused firmly on Argentina.
Recent better than expected rains cancelled out some of the recent rises but with another hot dry spell forecast the final area of planting is still far from certain. This uncertainty drives speculation and allows the traders to play at profit taking based on pure speculation. As one trader was reported to say this week “New suit on Monday, but just the underpants on Thursday” What a life!

Cereals. Half of the American crop is now used for Bio Ethanol! The current Wheat and Barley prices look much better than last year but the post New Year price rises have happened as predicted. The £9:00p per tonne initial rise has slipped back to a £5:00p at the time of writing this so the outlook is that the price will slowly firm from now until turnout.
The best advice is to cover energy now if you haven’t already done so at least until turn out when there might be some release of stored cereal ready for this year’s harvest.
Beware of un-quality assured feed grain as some of it is very poor and may be riddled with mycotoxins.

Maize Meal still hard to get but it might be worth tying up future supplies early subject to price confirmation. This way the chances of the stable being empty when you arrive in May will be much less.
Proteins
Soya has been pretty unstable since the New Year It is very hard to second guess this market but if (and it’s a big “if”) the prices get back to where they were at Christmas at around £240 per tonne trade ex- port we would strongly suggest some cover to place Hi-pro on farm at around £255 (full loads tipped) Currently prices would be about £273 to £278 per tonne.
Currently Rape seed meal has turned out to be pretty stable in price since the spring but currently at a low of £180 to £1185 on farm but there is still a chance to buy August – October in the low to mid £150’s per tonne delivered in full loads.
Maize Germ Extractions. Good supplies at the moment, A full boat load was imported in to east coast and subsequent store this month. It is still a fantastic feed for high yielding dairy cows.
The alternative has to be Maize Gluten, very much back on the agenda and pretty competitive.
There is a big variation in quality and some of it smells slightly burnt! Belgian is much better than the lack lustre stuff at Liverpool.
Fats and Fat supplements. The expected autumn rises in price did indeed happen and prices continue to be firm partly down to Soya (oil this time) supply being threatened by hot weather in Argentina.

Palm oil production has been stifled by wet weather in South East Asia, but as the rains ease it is expected that production should increase. This should keep the prices from rising for the time being but with world demand increasing slowly year on year we shouldn’t expect much of a drop.
Farm Mix. Prices have dropped by a few pounds since the autumn but current cereal price rises will stop any further falls. It is still good value against most cereals but Oat Cutting Flour (Which is now available only from Feed Specialties Ltd) is certainly worth consideration as a high starch very low sugar alternative. It has to be said that the current sugar levels in the Scottish version of farm Mix make it very palatable but a bit fierier than we have been used to from the English versions.
Sugar Beet Pulp. Trident Feeds are currently in the last throws of their Sugar Beet harvest. The Pressed Pulp market has pretty well arrived at the done deal stage so we are waiting for the final assessment of positions for the summer.
Any farmers who took advantage of the January storage deal for January Must take delivery in January or pay an £11:00p per tonne premium in February or lose the tonnage.
This is because Trident Feeds are able to get the £11:00p per tonne premium on spot tonnage so they are not flexible at all on this contract.
Molasses. Good value when compared to the other energy sources. This year the theme is all about trying to increase forage intakes and as you all know, nothing does it better than molasses.
Pea / Bean Meal
Much better supplies and has been such good value, that our existing customers are starting to use more than usual.
Pea / Bean meal can be used as a great feed for young stock (probably better than most compounds or blends), just add minerals.

For more information on any of the items mentioned in this newsletter please get in touch with Jerry or Richard.
Our phone numbers are always available during normal working hours.
You can also email Jerry or visit the Lakeland-Scottish website.
Telephone 01768 899513 Fax 01768 892744 Mobile 07711 034141
Email jerry@lakelandscottish.co.uk website www.lakelandscottish.co.uk

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