it was a great pleasure to visit Danish companies

Our feed team members had an opportunity to visit Denmark in May. Main idea was to get more experiences in cattle feeding.

For beginning we met DLG cattle nutrition specialists to talk mostly about feeding of transition cows. It is well known that good management of transition cows is extremely important.

Hypocalcemia is one of the most common metabolic disorders affecting cows around calving. Prevalence of subclinical hypocalcemia has found to be around 50% on older cows (Goff JP 1999). To decrease prevalence of hypocalcemia we have started to use calcium and phosphorus binding synthetic zeolite A (X-Zelite, Vilofoss) 2-3 weeks before calving. Synthetic zeolite dosing and administration is very simple comparing with DCAD-approach used in farms previously.
However, DLG has developed solutions for feeding cows before and after calving. These solutions are used successfully for many years in Danish dairy herds. Supplementary feeds recommended by DLG are covering needs of cows for protein, energy as well as increasing availability of aminoacids lysine and methionine. In case of dry cows also synthetic zeolite is used in compound feed composition. The idea is to introduce the same solutions to Estonian dairy farmers.

Second day in Denmark started with farm visit. We had a possibility to visit Alslev Agro Aps dairy farm and to get a good overview about feeding and management in this farm.

Our Denmark trip ended with visit to Vilofoss factory.

Many thanks to our colleagues from DLG and Vilofoss for interesting discussions and organizing that trip!

Big thanks to Claus Lausten Drøhse from Alslev Agro Aps for such an in-depth introduction to the farm everydays’ life!