Straw Compaction

[Muttley]

Had a cow die tonight from compaction. This is something I have never had experience with before.
She had not calved yet and was on a ration of one day hay two days straw with about 10 pounds of rolled barley each day. She was very healthy and was in good shape. She was about ten years old.
I cut her open trying to save the calf and seen she was right full of straw and grain.
One note, I am wondering because I have been processing my straw it was much finer could this have been part of my problem.

[cowman]

I am sure that could very well be your problem. A couple of years ago my neighbor had a wreck with straw compaction. He was feeding a lot of straw from a rotary combine and on top of that he put it through a processer. He was also feeding silage that had been chopped pretty fine. We saved a couple of his cows by pouring a couple of gallons of mineral oil down them. I think he lost six cows in the end. He switched the cows off the silage/straw ration when they started to die. Fed them some straight timothy hay, That seemed to get everything working right again.

[cowman]

Yep that'el do it. The old rumen needs extra protein with that straw to help break down the fiber. Your problem is compounded by the shortness of the straw which reduces the cud chewing. If you were to blend the components and feed them as one ration every day with added protein you might be able to get away with it. Next season if you plan to feed alot of straw have it injected with NH3 - anhyderous amonia. NH3 breaks down the lignen and making it more digestable and also adds protein!

[Muttley]

I've allways fed alot of straw. This year with hay prices so high I decided to feed more straw and up the grain ration. When I cut into this cow and saw how short the straw was I figured this could have compounded my problem.

[cowman]

The rotary combine makes very poor straw. Not only is there a big loss in volume but the chopped up straw causes lots of problems like compaction and bloating. Also it can be a challenge making a decent bale. Unfortunately there are hardly any conventional combines around anymore so we have little choice.

[chalmers]

Compaction typically occurs in high straw or poor quality forage rations where the animal is limited in energy/protein. Since it is the bacteria/microorganisms in the rumen that must break down the straw before it passes through the system, if the bacteria don't have enough energy/protein to do this job efficiently and the animal continues to eat high levels of the poor forage then the animal becomes impacted (compacted). We see the situation worsened in cold weather (beacause an animal's intake increases in the cold) or when waterers freeze up. My suggestion is to get a nutritionist to look at your ration, it is likely low in protein/energy. Your hay may be lower in quality than you think, therefore not picking up the slack for the straw. The grain is a positive, but in your situation it is either not sufficient in quantity to do the trick or something else is going on. My recommendation is to get someone to run the numbers and see where you are at.

[Muttley]

Had a vet look at things yesterday and it looks like the cow had some blockage in the bowels as well that may have effected the compaction as well.
I have talked with a nutrionist, he felt that the bale processor could be one of the reasons, being it broke up the straw to much. He say's that the chewing of the cud is important to breaking down the feed and that a cow does not do it as much with fine straw or even hay. Part of the problem could also have been with the higher amount of grain, if a cow was to get more than her share that would contribute to the problem.

[cowman]

With the 10 lbs. of rolled barley per day this cow was getting enough protein and energy. It is just that fine chewed up straw. What you need is some sort of long stemmed hay like brome or coarser timothy. And that could be very right about too much barley...it tends to shut everything down if they get too much.

[Muttley]

After talking with a few peolpe about my problem I have another question.

When I cut into this cow trying to save the calf I discovered that the feed inside her was completely dry. You would have that there would be some moisture to the straw but there wasn't.
Does anybody know why it would have been so dry? There also was no smell to the contents and I have been told that the smell from compaction can be terrible.