From the Ploughing Field to the Rumen: What Are Irish Dairy Cows Telling Us This Autumn?

The National Ploughing Championships are always one of the highlights of our year at Precision Microbes.

Three days of meeting farmers, vets and people working across Irish agriculture gives us an opportunity not only to talk about our products, but more importantly, to listen.

This year, Precision Microbes was delighted to return to the Innovation Arena, where one of our major focuses was RUMO-STIM, our new liquid complementary feed developed to support rumen function in cattle.

But one particular conversation kept coming back to us over the three days.

Farmers were describing high milk urea, loose or scouring cows, changes in butterfat and cows simply not performing as expected.

It wasn’t one isolated conversation. It felt like every second dairy farmer we spoke to had noticed some version of it.

That got us asking a simple question:

What is happening in our cows at grass this autumn?

From drought to rapidly growing grass

The weather has created an unusual nutritional transition on many farms.

Prolonged dry conditions restricted grass growth. Then rainfall returned while soils remained relatively warm.

The response has been rapid grass growth.

But what we see above ground is only part of the story.

Rewetting warm, previously dry soils can increase microbial activity and nutrient mineralisation. That can increase the availability of nitrogen to the recovering plant.

The result can be rapidly changing pasture — and rapidly changing pasture means a rapidly changing diet for the cow.

The grass can look fantastic while the cow tells a different story

This is where things become interesting.

From the field gate, the grass may look excellent: green, leafy and plentiful.

But the cow still has to digest it.

Autumn pasture can contain high levels of crude protein and rapidly degradable nitrogen. Efficiently using that nitrogen requires the rumen microbes to have an appropriate supply of fermentable energy at the same time.

Inside the rumen, dietary protein and other nitrogen sources are broken down, producing ammonia.

Rumen microbes can capture that nitrogen and use it to produce microbial protein. When nitrogen supply exceeds the microbes’ ability to capture it efficiently, more ammonia is absorbed and ultimately converted by the liver into urea.

Some of that urea can subsequently be measured in milk.

That is why milk urea can be a useful nutritional signal.

High milk urea is a signal — not a diagnosis

This distinction is important.

A high bulk-tank milk urea result doesn’t, on its own, tell us exactly what is happening inside the rumen.

Likewise, loose dung, falling butterfat or changes in milk production should not automatically be labelled as subacute ruminal acidosis (SARA).

Several nutritional and management factors can contribute to these signs.

The better question is:

What has changed in the diet, and how well is the rumen adapting to that change?

That means looking at the whole picture rather than one measurement.

What are your cows telling you?

This was probably our biggest takeaway from three days talking to farmers at the Ploughing.

The field can look fantastic while the cow is telling you something different.

Look at the signals.

Has bulk-tank milk urea increased?

Has dung become noticeably looser?

Has butterfat changed?

Has milk production moved?

Have rumination patterns changed?

Has grass dry matter changed substantially?

Has concentrate or supplementary forage been increased, reduced or removed?

None of these measurements should be interpreted in isolation.

Taken together, however, they may tell us that it’s time to take a closer look at the diet and at rumen function.

Supporting the rumen through nutritional change

The rumen is an extraordinary fermentation system.

But it is also a biological system.

When the diet changes quickly, the microbial community and rumen environment have to respond to that change.

That is where RUMO-STIM from Precision Microbes fits into the conversation.

RUMO-STIM is a liquid complementary feed developed to support rumen function during periods of nutritional challenge and dietary change.

It combines a live fermented microbial component, including Lactobacillus, with fermentation-derived postbiotic metabolites and complementary ingredients selected to support rumen function.

For adult cattle, the RUMO-STIM feeding protocol is:

250 ml per cow per day for four consecutive days.

RUMO-STIM is available in a 5-litre pack.

Importantly, supporting rumen function should not replace good nutritional investigation.

If cows are showing changes in dung, milk urea, butterfat, rumination or production, start with the basics.

Look at the grass. Look at the diet. Look at supplementation. Look at the milk results. Look at rumination. And most importantly, look at the cow.

RUMO-STIM can then form part of the nutritional support strategy during periods of dietary change and rumen challenge.

Innovation starts by listening

Innovation isn’t simply about developing something new.

Often, it starts by standing in a field and listening to the people managing animals every day.

That was what made our time in the Innovation Arena at this year’s National Ploughing Championships particularly valuable.

We went there to talk to farmers about RUMO-STIM.

We came away having had conversation after conversation about what farmers are actually seeing in their cows.

And there may be a much bigger biological story behind those observations.

The drought changed the soil.

The rain changed the grass.

The grass changed the diet.

And now the cow may be telling us how well her rumen is adapting.

Our job is to listen.

If you’re seeing high milk urea, loose dung, changes in butterfat, altered rumination or unexplained changes in performance, talk to your veterinary or nutritional adviser about what may have changed in the overall diet.

And where cows are experiencing a period of nutritional change or rumen challenge, talk to your veterinary adviser about RUMO-STIM from Precision Microbes and whether it could have a role in supporting rumen function in your herd.

RUMO-STIM — 250 ml per cow daily for four days. Available in 5-litre packs.