Rumisaf - Effective Digestion
Rumisaf is a live yeast product exclusive to Advanced Nutrition. Helping maintain…
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Rumisaf really does seem to make a difference
Milk prices led Yorkshire dairy farmers, Gary & Steven Swires, to question the inclusion of yeast in their dairy cow rations, despite having fed yeast for a long time.
Milk prices led Yorkshire dairy farmers, Gary & Steven Swires, to question the inclusion of yeast in their dairy cow rations, despite having fed yeast for a long time.
“It is easy to see ration additives such as live yeast as ‘magic dust’ and with milk prices under such pressure we thought about stripping back all inclusions to save money,” Gary explained. “But we are quite taken with Rumisaf live yeast – it really does seem to make a difference – so we have resisted removing it.”
Gary & Steven farm around 750 acres at High Moor Farm near Harrogate. They have around 400 cows calving all year around, and rear all young stock, with heifer replacements calving at around 24 months and all other cattle being sold at around 20 months of age as store cattle.
The brothers used to grow maize and wholecrop silage but, with the farm extending up to 700 ft. above sea level, those crops could prove unreliable and, consequently, weren’t very cost effective. As a result, they now run a simple ration based around three cuts of good quality grass silage, with some red clover/hybrid grass mixtures. “Grass silage is good for milk quality and the simpler system suits our land. Cows average around 9,000 litres/year with milk composition averaging 4.30 per cent butterfat and 3.25 per cent protein.”
So, what makes Gary & Steven so confident that Rumisaf is worth including, despite low milk prices putting pressure on costs?
“We include Rumisaf in our blend and a few months ago we changed blend and that meant no more Rumisaf,” Gary explained. “Shortly after the change our milk quality dropped from 4.3 per cent butterfat to 3.8 per cent butterfat, which was a concern. We decided to go back on Rumisaf to try to stabilise milk composition and had it included in our mineral pack. Butterfat returned to the previous level, which was great, and this seemed to confirm a strong correlation between Rumisaf inclusion and milk quality. I don’t think we’ll be taking it out again.”
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