Improved feed intake and healthier hooves in Mathias’ herd

Mathias Hansen lives in central Jutland, Denmark, where he has 165 ha and 125 milking cows as well as an annual beef calf production amounting to approx. 300 calves. When he acquired the farm, he faced problems with heat-generation in the cows’ and calves’ complete feed. Their appetite and feed intake deteriorated – on top of this, shifting to compact complete feed, the problem became even more acute.

”In June 2019, an advisor from DLG introduced me to FreshFoss for dairy cattle. You mix it with the feed, and this prevents heat-generation in the feed. It had an immediate effect on my cows’ appetite, and I saw a substantial increase in the feed intake,” says Mathias Hansen. 

Calves benefiting too

Realising the positive effect of FreshFoss on the dairy cattle, Mathias Hansen added the product to the complete feed for the calves. This also led to a significantly improved feed intake and a larger appetite, compared to previously. Even with temperatures peaking during summer, the daily gain remained unchanged.

Throughout summer, the dosage was 1 kg/tonne feed and, in autumn, FreshFoss is in the feed ration (mixed for two day’s consumption).

Hoof health substantially improved using HooFoss

In addition to the issues with heat-generation in the feed, Mathias Hansen had major problems with Digital Dermatitis in the dairy cattle – the first claw cutting showed that around 25% of the cows suffered from Digital Dermatitis, to varying degrees.

“We use milking robots, so I was very nervous that this would have a negative impact on the cow traffic. However, we decided to examine the issue and, so, we installed a hoof bath, which is a mattress containing the hoof care product HooFoss for the cows to walk through when they leave the milking parlour. Now, the cows have walked through the bath twice per week and, fortunately, this did not disturb the cow traffic,” says Mathias Hansen.

The result of the recent claw cutting showed a significant improvement of the hoof health – and the level of Digital Dermatitis had dropped to 3-4%.