Aug 2019
Over the past decade, the benefits of linPRO-R for dairy cattle health and milk production have been demonstrated in controlled research trials; however, commercial data was lacking….until now!
In 2016, O&T Farms collaborated with researchers at the University of California (Davis Campus) on an ambitious project to evaluate the impact of linPRO-R in early and mid-late lactation dairy cow diets under commercial production settings.
Preliminary research with Penn State University and the University of Saskatchewan demonstrated benefits of linPRO-R related to both animal health and production. Furthermore, producers and nutritionists using the product in the field claimed improvements in overall reproductive performance of their dairy herds.
“Since including linPRO-R in the diet of early lactating cows, my clients have observed a significant improvement in animal conception rates.”– Tim Emerson is an independent dairy nutrition consultant who has developed feeding programs that include linPRO-R.
To substantiate these claims, O&T Farms collaborated with Dr. Peter Robinson and Dr Nadia Swanepoel from the University of California, Davis. Robinson and Swanepoel worked directly with larege-scale California dairy producers to execute these trials with the objective of evaluating the impact of feeding linPRO-R to early and mid-late lactating dairy cattle on reproductive performance, milk production and composition, health incidences, milk fatty acid profiles and the overall economic impact for the producer.
After 3 years of intense data collection from > 1, 000 lactating cows,the results are in!
The overall conclusion made by the UC Davis team is that feeding linPRO-R at 2.5% D.M. to early and/or mid-late lactating dairy cattle offers an economic benefit to producers through improved production efficiencies, reduced health incidences and improved maintenance of pregnancy by the animal. Furthermore, increasing the dietary concentration of linPRO-R results in a linear improvement in the omega-3 fatty acid composition of the milk, which could open new market opportunities for value-added products.
For more details on this research click on the links below or contact O&T Farms.
