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March 2014
What good is a protein source if it doesn’t maximize your cows’ milk production? Recently, the University of Wisconsin, the University of Nevada and the U.S. Dairy Forage Research Center studied the effects feeding canola meal and soybean meal had on lactation performance, and the results may not be what you’d expect.
Sixty-four cows were fed diets of 17.3 percent crude protein via electronic feeding gates, which ensured the correct amount of dry matter was being consumed by each cow. For the first 21 days of the study, all cows were fed a common diet to create a baseline, with measurements being taken on day 21. For the next 63 days, half of the electronic feeders were assigned a diet in which the protein came from canola meal, and the other half were assigned to a soybean meal–based diet.
The treatment diets were made up of:
Over the course of the study, cows were milked twice daily and yields were recorded for all 84 days. Cows were also weighed weekly, and milk composition was determined for two consecutive milkings weekly.
At the end of the study, cows fed canola meal had higher dry matter intake (62.61 vs. 52.03 pounds of DM/day), higher milk yield (85.8 vs. 79.6 pounds/day), and higher levels of milk fat, protein and lactose. However, the cows fed canola meal protein had lower feed efficiency (1.55 vs. 1.38) than the cows fed soybean meal. Both groups experienced a body weight increase.
What does this all mean? When it comes to overall lactation performance, canola meal promotes increased milk production and higher component scores. While soybean meal did promote higher feed efficiency in this study, it’s up to the dairymen to decide if increased milk and components is worth a minor sacrifice in efficiency.
To learn more about canola meal and milk production, read the full research abstract from this study, or visit the milk production page.
