The AVA Annual Conference is the nation’s premier veterinary event, covering all fields of veterinary science and in 2017 brought together over 920 veterinary professionals and 115 exhibitors.
Ruminant nutrition is one area that many mixed practice veterinarians do not feel confident advising on. However there is a trend for people from the city to buy lifestyle small rural holdings and run a small herd of cows with very little or no previous production animal knowledge. One of the common problems is that owners greatly underestimate how much a cow needs to eat to maintain weight, particularly in the winter. They also have no understanding of quality of feed and whether it contains enough energy, protein and fibre. These problems can lead to a number of metabolic diseases such as ketosis, hypocalcaemia and acidosis. The aim of this presentation is to provide veterinarians with some basic knowledge on cattle nutrition so that they can recognise possible nutritional causes to metabolic diseases and deaths that they may be presented with. Maintenance requirements for classes of stock will be discussed. The energy, protein and fibre requirements for cattle will be matched with what some of the common feeds contain and high risk diets such as feeding bread and other by-products will also be summarised.
