Organic Selenium Effects On Dairy Cows

Mario Agovino, from Alltech Italy, looks at the effect of organic selenium (Sel-Plex®) on dairy cow health, fertility, milk production and milk quality.

8 August 2011

2 minute read

Alltech - Alltech provides Natural Cattle Feed Supplements

Objective

To evaluate the effect of organic selenium (Sel-Plex, Alltech Inc.) in diet on dairy cow health and fertility and milk production and quality.

Materials and methods

Experimental design

Location – Ballottino Farm, Cremona, Italy
100 Italian Holstein dairy cows
2 treatment groups: control (n=48); Sel-Plex (n=52)
Basal diets:
Dry period (kg/d) – corn silage (7.9), hay (5.8), concentrate (2.2) and straw (1.5)
Lactation period (kg/d) – corn silage (27.3), amino feed cotton (5.9) , high moisture corn (4.3), alfalfa hay (3.8), corn meal (1.9), concentrate(1.2), straw (0.1), premix (0.2)
Duration – dry period + 120 d of lactation

Treatments

CON – Basal diet + 0.3 ppm Se as sodium selenite
SP – Basal diet + 0.3 ppm Se as Sel-Plex (Alltech Inc.)

Measurements

Milk sampled on d 0, 7, 14, 21, 28, 44, 60, 90, 120 for yield and Se content.
Health parameters – SCCs recorded daily
Reproduction parameters – Incidence of retained placenta, days to conﬁrmed pregnancy, and services per conception.

Data analysis

ANOVA

Results

With Sel-Plex, the Se concentration in milk increased (0.058 SP vs 0.029 CON; Figure 1).

Sel-Plex treatment was associated with increased milk yield (37.9 kg/d SP vs 36.5 kg/d CON; Figure 2).
The Sel-Plex treatment was associated with lower SCCs (272,000/mL SP vs 320,000/mL CON; Figure 3).
With Sel-Plex, increases occurred in the number of cows with conﬁrmed pregnancy (83% SP vs 67% CON), whereas the number of retained placenta cases was lower (6 SP vs 10 CON), days to conﬁrmed pregnancy was lower (130 d SP vs 139 d CON), and services per conception was lower (1.63 SP vs 1.81 CON) (Table 1, Figure 4).
For a 100-cow herd the added cost of Sel-Plex® in diet was 810 € vs cost beneﬁts of 7380 €:
9 fewer open days @ 3 €/d/cow · 100 cows = 2700 €/herd
1.3 L/d/cow · 0.3 €/L · 120 d · 100 cows = 4680 €/herd
Sel-Plex® ROI = 9:1.

Conclusion

Sel-Plex supplementation was associated with increased (P<0.05) Se concentration in milk and improved cow health and fertility resulting in an ROI of 9:1.