Maximizing Profitability in Tight Margin Conditions: The Role of Feed Efficiency and Cow Health

This article was originally published in the April issue of the CowManagement - UK magazine.

With a growing population, ruminant products (milk and meat) continue to account for 51% of the protein consumed by the world’s population. Improving feed efficiency (FE) is therefore becoming increasingly important to support both sustainable food production and farm profitability. In markets such as the United Kingdom, where dairy producers are facing rising production costs and tighter margins, strategies that improve both herd efficiency and health can help control production costs and protect farm profitability.

But what does FE mean?

In this context, FE is the ability of a cow to produce more milk while eating the same amount of feed, or produce the same amount of milk while eating less, without losing body condition. From a producer’s perspective, improving the FE of a herd means enabling cows to convert feed into milk, which is a very energy-demanding process. If cows use valuable energy for non-productive functions such as heat production (Figure 1), this reduces the amount of energy available to be directed toward milk production. 

Feed efficiency is very complex, but in recent years genomic selection has made it possible to identify more efficient cows in the dairy industry. Management and nutritional tools also support this shift toward efficiency, including:

• Diet formulation guidelines
• Feed laboratory analyses
• Technologies such as automated feeding systems

How Can Feed Efficiency Be Measured?

There are several ways to measure FE, although each method has limitations. 

Methods based solely on feed conversion ratios can be misleading because they do not account for weight loss during early lactation. Cows may initially appear very efficient, but this often occurs at the expense of body fat mobilization, which can lead to disease and reproductive challenges.

Feed efficiency can also be evaluated from an economic perspective, which demonstrates that milk yield alone is not always sufficient to improve efficiency.

For these reasons, one novel trait commonly used to measure FE is Residual Feed Intake (RFI). This trait is biologically related to the efficiency of feed utilization, as it accounts for:

• The animal’s actual feed intake
• The expected feed requirements for maintenance and production.

What Impacts Feed Efficiency?

Feed efficiency is influenced by numerous biological mechanisms, including:

1. Stage of life: Cows have different nutrient requirements at different times, including lactation, dry-off, and close-up periods.
2. Behaviour: Feeding behaviours can be affected by sensory, social, circadian, and habitual factors.
3. Diet and digestibility: Feed processing, particle size, diet composition, and frequency of feed delivery all influence feed efficiency.
4. Gastrointestinal microbiota: There is a symbiotic relationship between ruminal microbes and the cow, which plays a key role in nutrient utilization.
5. Genetics: Selection for traits related to energy utilization, such as heat tolerance and smaller body size, can improve FE. Because many factors influence feed efficiency, there is a push for fast and practical improvements that producers can implement to positively impact herd and productivity.

Supporting Both Efficiency and Herd Health

Improving metabolic efficiency not only supports milk production but can also contribute to better overall cow health. For dairy farms, this can translate into fewer veterinary interventions, reduced treatment costs, and less labour required to manage sick animals.

Beyond these direct savings, improved metabolic efficiency help mitigate downstream economic losses associated with poor performance, reproductive inefficiency, or premature culling.

Nutrition: Part of the Solution

Given the complexity of FE, addressing it in a timely manner can be challenging. Adjusting herd nutrition is one of the approaches that can generate meaningful changes in a short time. These solutions are relatively easy to implement on dairy farms and can produce results that last into the future.

Ensuring a well-balanced ration is essential to maximize FE. Beyond macronutrients (protein, carbohydrates, and fat) supplied by the diet, an adequate intake of vitamins and minerals is necessary. Subclinical deficiencies can reduce metabolic efficiency, negatively affecting production and feed efficiency.

Protected B vitamins, which act as co-enzymes and support cows’ energy metabolism, are a nutritional supplement that has been shown to improve feed efficiency (ECM/DMI) in early lactation dairy cows (Figure 2).