Feed less Food - Minimaler Kraftfuttereinsatz verbessert die Fettsäuremuster bei ökologisch gehaltenen Milchziegen

Summary

More than a third of the world's grain harvest is used to feed animals. According to the environmental agency of the UN, losses of calories by bad conversion factor of grain into animal food could theoretically feed 3.5 billion people. This shows that the production of animal protein is very energy consuming, especially when concentrates are fed to ruminants. Until today feeding of ruminants even in organic dairy farming is based on concentrates, accepting overexploitation of resources and negative effects on animal health. In contrast to the received opinion of “a lot helps lot”, organic dairy production in Western Europe is trying to do the very reverse: Feeding less concentrates. This is in line with the evolution of ruminants to an excellent roughage converter, especially dairy goats are destined to produce high quality milk at a minimum amount of concentrates in their ration. In our study we wanted to evaluate effects of a low concentrate diet of maximum 10 % of the total annual dry matter intake per dairy goat (KF10) compared to a 40 % diet (KF40). As was expected, milk yield of KF10-group was lower, but fatty acid composition was more valuable using less concentrates. Omega-3 fatty acid and conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) were found to be significantly higher in the milk of the KF10 dairy goat group throughout the whole lactation. Thus, less can be more in terms of quality and taste.