Fatty acid intake and rumen fatty acid composition is affected by pre-grazing herbage mass and daily herbage allowance in Holstein dairy cows

The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of level of pre-grazing herbage mass (HM) and daily herbage allowance (DHA) on the fatty acid (FA) intake and composition of ruminal content of grazing dairy cows. Four rumen fistulated Holstein-Friesian dairy cows were allocated to either a high or low HM (1700 vs 2600 kg DM ha-1) and within herbage mass treatment further allocated to a high or low DHA (20 vs 16 kg of DM cow-1 day-1) in a 4 × 4 Latin square design. Total FA intake and linolenic acid (LNA) intake was higher for cows on high DHA (pppp