Eighteen primiparous and 42 multiparous Holstein cows were blocked according to parity and expected calving date and assigned randomly to 1 of 3 dietary treatments: 1) a basal diet (negative control), 2) the basal diet plus 2-hydroxy-4-methylthio butanoic acid isopropyl ester (MetaSmart, Adisseo Inc., Antony, France), or 3) the basal diet plus rumen-protected Met (Smartamine M, Adisseo Inc., Alpharetta, GA). Treatments were initiated 21 d before expected calving and continued through 140 d postpartum. Diets were similar in ingredient and chemical composition, except for the content of Met in metabolizable protein. MetaSmart [0.35% prepartum and 0.54% postpartum in diet dry matter (DM)] and Smartamine M (0.06% prepartum and 0.10% postpartum in diet DM) were added to the basal diet in amounts needed to achieve a 3.0:1 ratio of Lys to Met in metabolizable protein. Prepartum DM intake (DMI; 13.5 kg/d), body weight (687 kg), body condition score (3.81), postpartum milk yield (42.0 kg/d), milk fat yield (1,549 g/d), milk fat content (3.66%), milk true protein yield (1,192 g/d), and milk urea N content (12.9 mg/dL) were not different among treatments. Postpartum DMI and body condition score were greater and the ratios of milk:DMI and milk N:feed N were less for cows fed the MetaSmart diet than for cows fed the control and Smartamine M diets. Milk protein content was greater for the Smartamine M (2.87%) and MetaSmart (2.81%) treatments than for the control treatment (2.72%). Concentrations of Met and Met + Cys in total plasma AA were different among treatments, with values for the Smartamine M treatment being the highest, followed by the MetaSmart and control treatments. The results indicated that both MetaSmart and Smartamine M are effective in providing metabolizable Met, but clarification of their relative contributions to metabolizable Met is still needed.

One primiparous and 3 multiparous lactating Holstein cows fitted with ruminal and duodenal cannulas were used in a 4 × 4 Latin square design to determine the efficacy of adding urea to a corn silage-based diet on ruminal fermentation and microbial protein synthesis. Dietary treatments were 0, 0.3, 0.6, and 0.9% urea in diet dry matter (DM); urea was manually top dressed and incorporated into the ration. The basal diet contained (DM basis) 52% forage (with 61% of forage provided as corn silage) and 48% concentrate ingredients. The basal diet was formulated to meet National Research Council (NRC, 2001) requirements for energy and all nutrients except rumen-degradable protein (RDP) and metabolizable protein. Experimental periods lasted 14 d with the first 9 d for adaptation. The basal diet, without urea addition, contained 9.2% RDP in DM and had a predicted RDP balance of −167 g/d (NRC, 2001). There were no effects of dietary treatment on ruminal true digestibility of organic matter or ruminal apparent digestibility of neutral detergent fiber and acid detergent fiber. Total ruminal volatile fatty acid concentrations increased linearly with increasing urea level. Feeding increasing amounts of urea quadratically increased rumen ammonia N concentrations (9.0, 11.9, 12.8, and 17.4 mg/dL at 0, 0.3, 0.6, and 0.9% urea supplementation, respectively), passage of microbial N, and microbial N in duodenal digesta as a percentage of nonammonia N. The results of this study indicate that there were some positive effects of adding urea to the described lactating dairy cow diet, and that microbial protein synthesis was maximized at an average Received January 8, 2007. Accepted August 10, 2007 This is Scientific Contribution Number 2321 from the New Hampshire Agricultural Experiment Station. 2Corresponding author: charles.schwab@unh.edu 5619 ruminal ammonia N concentration of 12.8 mg/dL when urea was added at 0.6% in diet DM.

Thirty-four multiparous Holstein dairy cows (780 +/- 17.2 kg body weight; 3.4 +/- 0.08 body condition score) were used in a completely randomized design to evaluate the effects of fermentable carbohydrate source on dry matter (DM) intake, milk production, and blood metabolites of transition cows. Treatments were initiated 30 d before expected calving date. After calving, all cows went onto a similar lactating cow diet. Dry matter intake was measured daily, and milk production and composition were measured weekly for 56 d after calving The control diet consisted of 11.5% ground corn, whereas the treatment diet consisted of sucrose replacing 2.7% of ground corn on a DM basis. Prepartum plasma glucose concentrations were higher (66.3 vs. 69.3 +/- 1.13 mg/dl) for cows fed the diet containing sucrose. Glucose concentrations were not different postpartum. Prepartum and postpartum nonesterified fatty acids, blood urea N, and insulin did not differ between treatments. Substitution of sucrose as a readily available carbohydrate source for ground corn did not affect prepartum or postpartum DM intake. Milk yield, 3.5% fat-corrected milk yield, and milk components did not differ between treatments. Results from this research demonstrated that partially replacing ground corn with sucrose did not enhance prepartum or postpartum intake or performance.

Several methods were used for the evaluation of feed protein for rumen degradability and intestinal digestibility of rumen undegraded protein (RUP). The aim of this work was to explore the possibility of using the Cornell method of predicting the fraction RUP. An in situ method was adopted for estimation of degradability parameters (a, b, c) and effective degradable crude protein (EDCP), and five nitrogen fractions (A, B 1 , B 2 , B 3 , and C) were determined according to the Cornell Net Carbohydrate and Protein System (CNCPS). Fifty-one feedstuffs-13 cereals grains, 5 legume seeds, 3 oilseeds, 11 oilseed by-products, 4 distillers dried grains with solubles (DDGS), and 15 silages (maize, lucerne, grass, and grass-clover)-were used in this work. The examined feedstuffs varied widely in nutrient composition. Fraction B 1 (soluble true protein) in forages was small (2.5-5.7% of total N), but it varied to a large extent in concentrates (DDGS 0.9-1.2, legumes 46.5-63.7, oilseeds meal 17.1-51.8% of total N). Fraction B 2 represented a large proportion of the total protein in oil seed meals (44.3-82.6% of total N) and in DDGS (55.8-77.8% of total N), too. Fraction B 3 was relatively small (less than 10% of total N) in all feedstuffs and declined with increasing acid detergent insoluble nitrogen (ADIN) concentration. The concentration of ADIN fraction in feeds affected ruminal degradability. Lucerne silage, with a high content of ADIN (30.9% of total N), had a low effective crude protein (CP) degradability (57%). Correlation between EDCP and fraction A was r = 0.76. A weaker correlation (r = 0.67) was found between in situ parameter "b" and fractions B 2 and B 3 (r = 0.59), respectively. The results show that much more samples of all feed types should be analyzed to obtain results allowing a more exact prediction of CP degradability and RUP.

Twenty multiparous Holstein cows were used in four 5 × 5 Latin squares to determine the effects of feeding increasing amounts of distillers dried grains with solubles (DDGS) in diets with or without the supplementation (60 g/d) of a rumen-protected Lys (RPL) product (AminoShure-L, 38% l-Lys; Balchem Encapsulates, New Hampton, NY) on milk yield and composition and plasma concentration of AA. Dietary treatments were (1) control (CON; no DDGS), (2) 10% DDGS (10DG), (3) 20% DDGS (20DG), (4) 10% DDGS plus RPL (10DGRPL), and (5) 20% DDGS plus RPL (20DGRPL). Diets were formulated using the Cornell-Penn-Miner Dairy model (CPM v3.0; http://cahpwww.vet.upenn.edu/node/77) to provide a predicted decreasing supply of Lys (117, 99, and 91% of requirements) for the CON, 10DG, and 20DG diets, respectively. Addition of RPL to the 10DG and 20DG diets (unsupplemented diets) resulted in 2 additional treatments, 10DGRPL and 20DGRPL diets, respectively. The 10DGRPL and 20DGRPL diets met 110 and 100% of the Lys requirements, respectively. Periods lasted 21d, with the last 3d for data collection. Compared with cows fed the CON diet, cows fed diets with DDGS had a similar dry matter intake (DMI; 25.4 ± 0.88 kg/d), milk yield (30.7 ± 1.67 kg/d), and composition, except for protein percentage, which was higher (3.15 vs. 3.21 ± 0.05%) and resulted in higher (0.94 vs. 1.00 ± 0.05 kg/d) protein yield by cows fed diets containing 20% DDGS. Unexpectedly, despite diets being formulated based on predicted DMI of 23.3 kg/d and milk yield of 38.5 kg/d, cows had a greater DMI and lower milk yield across all treatments, which resulted in diets that were predicted by CPM Dairy to supply sufficient amounts of Lys (140, 118, and 104% of requirement for the CON, 10 DG, and 20 DG diet, respectively) and consequently, supplementation with RPL did not have an effect on milk production or composition. Plasma concentration of Lys decreased (11.8%) as DDGS inclusion increased. For other essential AA, plasma concentrations of cows fed diets with DDGS were lower for Arg, His, and Val and greater for Leu and Met compared with cows fed the CON diet. Supplementation with RPL failed to decrease the plasma concentration of other essential AA, which provides support that Lys was not limiting.