Post by simplynaturalfarm on Dec 11, 2011 0:58:50 GMT -5
Headed to bed - I get longwinded, so I'll write tomorrow ![:)](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/smiley.png)
Grain would not make her go ketotic, acidosis from overfeeding grain would suppress her appetite and her not wanting to eat would exacerbate the ketosis. In Acidosis you get periods of low rumen PH that depresses a cow's feed intake and puts her off feed. Her going off feed causes the ketosis, not simply ANY grain being fed.
2lbs should not cause acidosis so if she goes off feed it would not be due to the 2lbs of grain (does that make sense?)
The real problem with grain feeding tends to be when a cow (grassfed or simply low grain) who is not adapted to grain feeding goes into ketosis and we all do a "WHOA, she needs energy yesterday!" OR she is not used to grain and she calves and we put her on 10lbs of grain (or 20 or whatever - there are many cows that can get away with it at the time, but months down the road it shows up as butterfat depression, Dry matter intake problems, laminitis etc)
So with Ketosis we up the grain too fast because we know she needs it, but the pappilae and microflora in the rumen need 3-5 weeks of gradual change to adapt from grassfed to grain fed. It is a bit of a dance - you raise it quickly to try to get the energy into her and hope you are not doing it so fast you end up with acidosis.
Ruminal pH drops below 5.5 if they eat too much rapidly fermentable carbohydrates. (this can happen with overfeeding beet pulp, too lush of spring grass in the spring, overfeeding oats etc - anything that is a rapidly fermentable carb) In sub acute ruminal acidosis, the rumen ph drops but then has time to come back up before the next meal and then drops and comes up etc. In acute acidosis, a cow has a drop below 5.5 for over 24 hours.
The digestion of large quantities of highly fermentable feeds leads to rapid production of Volatile fatty acids in the rumen. Absorption through the rumen epithelium is the main mechanism by which the VFA are removed from the rumen. When you adapt a cow's rumen to grain feeding, the pappilae inside the rumen are very long and fingerlike - the surface area has increased which increases the absorptive capacity and protects the animal from excessive acid accumulation. IF excess volatile fatty acid production occurs from overfeeding highly fermentable carbohydrates, it is more than the rumen pappilae can handle and causes a drop in ph following the meal (as well as damage to the epithelium of the rumen, abscesses etc which FURTHER influence the rumens ability to deal with excessive VFA's (that was oversimplified and it does a lot more than just damaging papillae). Then the cow's body tries to protect itself from excessive dietary volatile fatty acids by depressing their appetite so the cow doesn't want to eat more corn (or oats or whatever). It is a self protection measure, but inflammation/ruminitis causes pain and that itself can reduce their appetite.
Low rumen ph also reduces the number of bacteria in the rumen and when there is less protozoa and bacteria, the ruminal microflora are less capable of maintaining ph where it needs to be when there is a sudden dietary change - thus a cow with some of the risk factors of SARA will be more sensitive to grain overload in the future as she already has decreased rumen bacteria that are not capable of keeping PH at proper level. Feeding her more overwhelms her system completely and her rumen often shuts down to protect itself.
This is why I had a sick sick steer 2 years ago - he had been crawling through my chicken coop door (I did not know he could make himself that small!) and eating barley. He stopped eating hay but kept forcing himself through that gate to eat barley and then giving himself a stomach ache. Then he would go lie down with a belly ache til it passed, get up and snack on more. Then one day the door broke in and he got in and ate 5 gallons of the stuff and developed acute acidosis that had to be treated before he died - he was not a happy camper, but he was a sick sick boy. Unfortunately those incidences often permanently damage their rumens causing them to appear to be "poor doers" as the low PH causes ulcers, damage to bacteria, and keratin forming clumps of pappilae which decrease VFA surface area for digestion etc. I have one cow who has a few issues keeping on weight and does not produce as much milk as she should and she glutted herself on moldy barley the day she calved and then 7 days later!! The day she calved she lost her calf to a steer killing it and I removed the body. She broke through my fences to find the calf and found a pile of moldy barley that had been emptied out of a grain bag. We had to tube her and DH actually thought she might require surgery to empty the barley out she had eaten so much, but she did not. Well 1 week later she got out of the electric fence when I moved her buddies and she stuffed herself on a pile of chicken feed (small cows get into places you wouldn't think they could!). She had to be treated again and I believe that permanantly affected her weight, how hardy of a keeper she is and her milk production. I have kept her because . . . well I don't have freezer space right now and I want to see if I can get a daughter out of her to see how well her daughter's milk.![:)](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/smiley.png)
Here is a website that explains some of the rumen function and acidosis.
HAVING SAID ALL OF THAT - we don't know if your cow EVER had acidosis. I am just saying why overfeeding grain when you need energy for a cow can be detrimental. BUT 2 lbs is not going to put your cow into acidosis![:)](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/smiley.png)
Heather
![:)](http://storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/smiley.png)
Grain would not make her go ketotic, acidosis from overfeeding grain would suppress her appetite and her not wanting to eat would exacerbate the ketosis. In Acidosis you get periods of low rumen PH that depresses a cow's feed intake and puts her off feed. Her going off feed causes the ketosis, not simply ANY grain being fed.
![:)](http://storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/smiley.png)
2lbs should not cause acidosis so if she goes off feed it would not be due to the 2lbs of grain (does that make sense?)
The real problem with grain feeding tends to be when a cow (grassfed or simply low grain) who is not adapted to grain feeding goes into ketosis and we all do a "WHOA, she needs energy yesterday!" OR she is not used to grain and she calves and we put her on 10lbs of grain (or 20 or whatever - there are many cows that can get away with it at the time, but months down the road it shows up as butterfat depression, Dry matter intake problems, laminitis etc)
So with Ketosis we up the grain too fast because we know she needs it, but the pappilae and microflora in the rumen need 3-5 weeks of gradual change to adapt from grassfed to grain fed. It is a bit of a dance - you raise it quickly to try to get the energy into her and hope you are not doing it so fast you end up with acidosis.
Ruminal pH drops below 5.5 if they eat too much rapidly fermentable carbohydrates. (this can happen with overfeeding beet pulp, too lush of spring grass in the spring, overfeeding oats etc - anything that is a rapidly fermentable carb) In sub acute ruminal acidosis, the rumen ph drops but then has time to come back up before the next meal and then drops and comes up etc. In acute acidosis, a cow has a drop below 5.5 for over 24 hours.
The digestion of large quantities of highly fermentable feeds leads to rapid production of Volatile fatty acids in the rumen. Absorption through the rumen epithelium is the main mechanism by which the VFA are removed from the rumen. When you adapt a cow's rumen to grain feeding, the pappilae inside the rumen are very long and fingerlike - the surface area has increased which increases the absorptive capacity and protects the animal from excessive acid accumulation. IF excess volatile fatty acid production occurs from overfeeding highly fermentable carbohydrates, it is more than the rumen pappilae can handle and causes a drop in ph following the meal (as well as damage to the epithelium of the rumen, abscesses etc which FURTHER influence the rumens ability to deal with excessive VFA's (that was oversimplified and it does a lot more than just damaging papillae). Then the cow's body tries to protect itself from excessive dietary volatile fatty acids by depressing their appetite so the cow doesn't want to eat more corn (or oats or whatever). It is a self protection measure, but inflammation/ruminitis causes pain and that itself can reduce their appetite.
Low rumen ph also reduces the number of bacteria in the rumen and when there is less protozoa and bacteria, the ruminal microflora are less capable of maintaining ph where it needs to be when there is a sudden dietary change - thus a cow with some of the risk factors of SARA will be more sensitive to grain overload in the future as she already has decreased rumen bacteria that are not capable of keeping PH at proper level. Feeding her more overwhelms her system completely and her rumen often shuts down to protect itself.
This is why I had a sick sick steer 2 years ago - he had been crawling through my chicken coop door (I did not know he could make himself that small!) and eating barley. He stopped eating hay but kept forcing himself through that gate to eat barley and then giving himself a stomach ache. Then he would go lie down with a belly ache til it passed, get up and snack on more. Then one day the door broke in and he got in and ate 5 gallons of the stuff and developed acute acidosis that had to be treated before he died - he was not a happy camper, but he was a sick sick boy. Unfortunately those incidences often permanently damage their rumens causing them to appear to be "poor doers" as the low PH causes ulcers, damage to bacteria, and keratin forming clumps of pappilae which decrease VFA surface area for digestion etc. I have one cow who has a few issues keeping on weight and does not produce as much milk as she should and she glutted herself on moldy barley the day she calved and then 7 days later!! The day she calved she lost her calf to a steer killing it and I removed the body. She broke through my fences to find the calf and found a pile of moldy barley that had been emptied out of a grain bag. We had to tube her and DH actually thought she might require surgery to empty the barley out she had eaten so much, but she did not. Well 1 week later she got out of the electric fence when I moved her buddies and she stuffed herself on a pile of chicken feed (small cows get into places you wouldn't think they could!). She had to be treated again and I believe that permanantly affected her weight, how hardy of a keeper she is and her milk production. I have kept her because . . . well I don't have freezer space right now and I want to see if I can get a daughter out of her to see how well her daughter's milk.
![:)](http://storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/smiley.png)
Here is a website that explains some of the rumen function and acidosis.
HAVING SAID ALL OF THAT - we don't know if your cow EVER had acidosis. I am just saying why overfeeding grain when you need energy for a cow can be detrimental. BUT 2 lbs is not going to put your cow into acidosis
![:)](http://storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/smiley.png)
Heather