This is what Dr. Brian Sloan, Adisseo’s Global Director of Ruminant Amino Acids and Protected Nutrient Business shared with Feedinfo in a recent chat ahead of the company celebrating the 30-year anniversary of its journey to provide amino acid (AA) balancing solutions for the benefit of the dairy industry.
“Formulating on an amino acid basis was readily accepted in monogastric nutrition more than 50 years ago as a mainstream practice for optimising performance and health. The dairy industry, however, has been ultra conservative in its acceptance, with less than five million dairy cows worldwide currently receiving a diet balanced for AAs,” he shared. “Rumen protected AAs were developed as ingredients to provide high concentrations of metabolizable methionine and lysine for use in better formulating diets. Yet the industry viewed them primarily as feed additives to improve milk protein production. The practice has been to use them only when the economics of milk protein payments are viewed as favourable.
This ignores the broader need of the modern dairy animal for limiting AAs, such as methionine and lysine. Both are essential nutrients.”
In this Industry Perspectives, Mr. Sloan chats with us about these broader needs of the dairy cow and explains how improved methionine supplementation can help with so much more than just milk protein production. This includes supporting the physical and reproductive health of dairy cows, extending their productive lives, and, of course, farm sustainability.