High-producing dairy cows are always facing metabolic, environmental, and nutritional challenges caused by calving, high production, overcrowding, diet changes, weather conditions (heat stress), and so on. Taking care of these problems is important if you want to keep your fertility, health, and productivity high.
Stressful situations can cause less milk to be made, less efficient use of feed, and a higher risk of diseases and infections like mastitis.
Stress is also known to lower the immune system, which can cause systemic inflammation and make people more likely to get sick. For the farmer, this can mean less milk from the cows and higher costs for treatment and replacement.
Setting up different ways to reduce stress can help improve the health, well-being, and productivity of animals, especially during times when they are at high risk. These types of management should focus on keeping the animals cool enough in the summer, giving them enough space so they don’t get too crowded and fight over food at the trough, giving them dry, clean bedding, making sure they are properly grouped during transitions, and making sure they don’t move too much between pens.
Adding yeast postbiotics as an active ingredient
Along with these strategies, giving dairy cows active ingredients like yeast postbiotics on purpose can help strengthen the immune system.
A weak immune response during times of high stress, like calving, can cause inflammation throughout the body and take energy away from making milk. During the first few days after giving birth, there are more inflammatory lipids (ceramides and oxylipids) and acute phase proteins in the blood. This makes the immune system less effective at fighting off pathogens. The most diseases, such as mastitis, metritis, and metabolic disorders, happen to dairy cows right after they give birth.
Adding the yeast postbiotic Safmannan to dairy cows’ diets during high-risk times helps to boost their natural defences and control how their innate immune system responds, which could help to prevent health problems.
Scientists have found that Safmannan is the only thing that can bind Escherichia coli, Salmonella, Clostridium, and Listeria in the gut, making them less harmful. Several tests, both in vitro and in vivo, have shown this to be true.
Safmannan has also been shown to interact with gut-based immune cells, like macrophages and dendritic cells, which are part of the innate immune system. This helps immune cells respond to pathogens and metabolic challenges in the best way possible, which strengthens the animal’s natural defences.
How does Safmannan work?
Pathogen binding: Because of the way its surface is made up of mannoproteins and beta-glucans that are linked to each other, some harmful bacteria can attach to it. This makes it harder for them to colonise the intestinal epithelium. When the number of pathogens in the gut goes down, endotoxins and inflammation in the gut also go down.
Immune modulation: The unique combination of active molecules on the surface of Safmannan interacts well with innate immune cells (macrophages and dendritic cells) in the mucosa of the small intestines, turning on specific pattern recognition receptors. When these receptors are turned on, the immune system responds better to pathogens.
In a field study, 300 dairy cows with a history of more health problems were given 10 g of Safmannan per cow per day for 106 days. The study was based on a field test in South Dakota, USA, that was done in an on-and-off pattern.
The health records of the herd were looked at to find out about morbidity during two times: a reference period of 6 months (control) and a period of 4 months when Safmannan was given as a supplement. During the study, the causes of morbidity were written down. These included abortion, milk fever, retained placenta (RP), anorexia, pneumonia, and death. The effects of supplements were looked at with an F-T test, and differences were looked at with a one-tailed T-test. When P was less than 0.10, the results were considered statistically important. (See Table 1).
During the period of supplementation, milk samples were taken to find out what was in the milk. A calibrated mid-infrared milk analyzer was used to look at the samples.
When Safmannan was added to the diet, health problems got a lot better, and somatic cell counts (SCC) and farm profits went up compared to the reference period. Based on the number of health problems per 100 cows and the cost of supplementation, the return on investment (ROI) for using Safmannan was estimated to be 4.4:1. This was compared to the cost of health problems in cows that weren’t given supplements. ROI went up to 5:1 when the drop in clinical mastitis and the value of the milk that wasn’t lost were taken into account.
Conclusion
At a dose of 10-15 g/cow/day, giving dairy cows Safmannan yeast postbiotics can help reduce health problems in high-risk dairy cows and reduce SCC in the whole herd. Safmannan can boost the immune system of cows so they can fight off different pathogens and reduce inflammation by changing how anti-inflammatory cytokines are made. Death rates and other health problems in a herd are extra costs that, in many cases, cause farmers to lose money. Safmannan has been shown to be a cost-effective way to improve dairy farm performance by keeping the gut and immune system healthy.
