Strategies to decrease incidence of fatty liver in dairy cows

Holstein cows were used to explore aspects of dietary strategies to decrease lipid accumulation in the liver after parturition. In experiment 1, 75 cows (30 primiparous) were fed controlled-energy, high-forage (CEHF) diets or were overfed energy (OVERFED) from dry-off to parturition, or CEHF for the first 40 d after dry-off, followed by OVERFED for the last approximately 20 d before parturition (2-stage). During the periparturient period, cows fed CEHF had lower lipid accumulation in the liver than OVERFED cows and there was no advantage to using the 2-stage feeding strategy. In experiment 2, 16 cannulated mulitparous cows were assigned to one of 4 feeding combinations. Cows were fed CEHF throughout the entire dry period or fed with a 2-stage dietary strategy. Half of each group of cows (CEHF or 2-stage) were fed a diet with monensin added; whereas, the other half were fed a diet without monensin. Monensin tended to modulate rumen fermentation, particularly in cows fed the 2-stage diet strategy. Supplemental monensin increased milk production and had neutral or positive effects on rumen fermentation and rumen dynamics. Neither the higher energy closeup diet in the 2-stage strategy nor monensin supplementation affected ruminal papillae length. In these experiments, there were few advantages demonstrated for the 2-stage strategy compared with the single-group CEHF strategy during the dry period.