NutriFibre- Healthy cows

With NutriFibre^®, cows get a large part of the energy from the cell walls because NutriFibre^®’s cell wall composition is more easily digestible than that of other grasses (figure 4). Cell walls can be built from three different components:

• Lignin = indigestible wood dust without feed value.
• Cellulose = dairy cows only digest one-third of the cellulose.
• Hemicellulose = breaks down in eight hours enabling cows to digest it completely.

NutriFibre^®’s cell walls consist mostly of hemicellulose. This explains the high feed value in combination with effective fibre. All other effective fibre products such as heading grass have a lower digestible hemicellulose rate, causing a large part of the feed to fail to convert into milk.

During the fermentation of the feed that cows eat, fatty acids are released. Fatty acids cause a (temporary) decrease in rumen pH (acidity). The pH will restore itself once the fatty acids have been absorbed by the rumen wall. When cows eat too many fast degradable carbohydrates (sugars and starch), too many fatty acids are released, causing the rumen to malfunction. This is easily prevented by increasing the effective fibre in the feed ration to stimulate rumination. This intensive rumination increases the production of saliva, enabling the cows to produce bicarbonate themselves. This bicarbonate has a buffering effect in the rumen, preventing the fatty acids from lowering the pH too much. In this way effective fibre enhances rumen activity, thereby preventing rumen acidosis.

Read more about rumen acidosis