What Are Dairy Nutritionists Looking for in Alfalfa Hay

Dairy cattle nutritionists value alfalfa hay for its high energy value which supports milk production, its rapidly rumen digested structural fiber which stimulates feed intake, its coarse structural fiber that stimulates ruminative chewing and salivation which results in rumen buffering, its structural fiber which has a high buffering capacity , its high protein level which supports animal protein needs, and the relatively high proportion of its protein that escapes the rumen undegraded which minimizes dietary requirements for high cost protein supplements. Many of these nutritional attributes can be maximized by selection of the most appropriate cultivars and proper harvest management. New cultivar development offers the possibility to further improve these nutritional attributes. However it would be undesirable if, in the drive to create higher energy alralfa hays, the fiber level of new cultivars of alfalfa hays were further reduced. Alfalfa hay is a forage and its structural fiber gives it many of its strengths as a feed for dairy cattle. Efforts to increase the energy level of alfalfa hay should concentrate on increasing the rate and extent of digestion of structural fiber in the rumen, without losing the positive nutritional characteristics, and quantity, of the structural fiber.