Add KERVA to your cattle’s feed to increase protein levels whilst reducing €€€ and improving animal health.
Inform Nutrition’s KERVA treated grain is the most financially viable option for your winter milk young stock and finishing beef diets this winter.
KERVA has been formulated with the following key benefits for farmers:
Preserving grain & reducing storage losses due to moulds and heating issues
Proving a nutritionally enhanced concentrate
Reduced ration costs
Improved animal performance
Reducing Storage Losses
Treated KERVA grain increases the pH through the production of ammonium bicarbonate. This stabilises the grain and prevents microorganisms from growing and respiring. It can be used on grain at harvest or dormant grain post-harvest.
Nutritionally Enhanced Concentrate
KERVA provides a buffer which allows the rumen to combat excess acidity from rapidly fermentable starches and sugars in the diet which has been proven to result in better finishing performance and milk production and reduces digestive upsets and lameness.
Due to this alkaline pH, grain can be safely fed at much higher levels than conventionally treated grain and dietary fibre constraints can therefore be reduced.
Cost Reduction
The high associated costs involved in maintaining stable rumen health in beef and dairy herds whilst they are consuming large amounts of rapidly fermentable grain starch is a huge problem for farmers, particularly in high performance indoor systems.
Digestible fibre is often more expensive to purchase than home produced cereal. Adding KERVA treated grain into your feed reduces your dependency on this by reducing your input costs. KERVA treated grain increases the amount of protein per grain typically by 4 units ultimately providing a 2:1 return in investment.
Animal Performance - Beef
To produce high-quality animals, it is desirable to finish cattle on a high level of grain. Whilst using KERVA in finishing beef diets, trials have shown an improved performance of 10% average weight gain through improved rumen health and subsequent reduction in lameness.
Kerva | Control | ||
Starting weight kg | 442.5 | 444.0 | |
Finishing weight kg | 550.85 | 542.5 | |
Gain kg | 108.35 | 98.5 | |
ADLG | 1.35 | 1.23 | +10% |
Locomotion score ≥ 2 | 4/30 | 11/28 |
Finishing Holstein Bulls on high concentrate diet
Animal Performance - Dairy
In trials involving dairy cows on KERVA treated grain, an improvement over 80 days, milk yield of 2 litres of milk per day in freshly calved cows was seen. Improvements in lameness, a lowering of digestive upsets and metabolic issues were also observed.
Comparison between Kerva Treated Grain and Propionic Treated Grain
KERVA Treated | Propionic Acid |
Easy & Safe to use | Can be corrosive & harmful to user |
Increases protein value by €40/t | NO protein benefit |
Increases pH of grain | Decreases pH of grain |
Reduces animal digestion issues | Can cause digestive imbalances |
Increases animal performance | No finishing or milk production improvement |
No fermentation losses | No fermentation losses |
The benefits of using KERVA treated grain far outweigh any perceived cost savings associated with using propionic acid to treat grain. Less work and safer for the farmer to use, our higher protein output performance makes KERVA treated grain the only sensible choice for your winter milk stock and finishing beef this winter.