Seagreens® Information Service  0845-0640040 / +44-1444-400403
 
Cattle



Recommended daily inclusion 5 - 20 grams per animal per day.

Plaw Hatch Farm is a Demeter Certified Biodynamic® and Organic teaching farm in West Sussex, England, one of the longest established in Britain.

In 2003, dairyman Tom Ventham began feeding Seagreens® to his dairy cattle, which produce some of the country’s finest cheese.

Quoted from The Week, Health & Science, June 9, 2018 p19: Can Seaweed Curb Cow Methane?

Australian and US researchers say that a compound in seaweed appears to inhibit an enzyme that produces the large volumes of methane which cows belch continuously from digesting and fermenting high fibre grass.

Under lab conditions they reduced methane emissions by 99%. They are now adding small amounts of seaweed to cattle feed and describe the results as "amazing" with cows eating the seaweed-enriched feed showing "substantial emission reductions".

This is borne out in more recent independent studies on Seagreens® Ascophyllum which is the species we use for our Mineralizing Meal.

In humans it is known that including seaweed has th same effect on baked beans, lentils and the like - explained by a nutritionist in this video from our 2017 Foundation conference in Edinburgh.

One of our early manufacturing customers was Whole Earth Foods who put it in their baked beans! Good for them. And even better for everyone else.

“Winter feeding conventional milking cows was always a complicated science for me at college, balancing intake with maintenance of production and pregnancy, calculating deficiencies and supplementing accordingly.

Feeding milking cows on a Biodynamic farm is completely different. We can really only produce milk from what we grow for the cows. The bulk is hay, giving the milk an untainted taste, some oats for energy and beans for protein, and that’s it! Choosing the breed is crucial: one that can support itself on this ration.

For the 6 months of summer grazing at Plaw Hatch, the cows flourish on grass alone. In my early years here we had problems with fertility in winter, retained placentas, poor coats, general unthrifityness, and taints in the milk.

This was a direct result of the poor quality forage we produced which ultimately was a result of poor pastures. Consulting vets suggested among other things, to implant boluses with calcium cobalt and selenium to slow-release over time.

We tried a few cows - poor things - with no results to suggest improvements. We tried feeding expensive molasses-based mineral licks which the cows seem to eat at an alarming rate, but still no improvement (the left-over buckets were the most useful part!).

I then discovered Simon’s seaweed, with its well balanced analysis of just about every mineral and trace element in perfect proportions.

I remember offering some in my hand to a cow that licked it clean of every granule before the next cow picked up the scent. So we tried it, and to this day we still routinely feed Seagreens® to all the milking cows (and sows) during the winter and all the problems of fertility and poor coats etc., have gone.

I tried to do comparative blood tests before and after, but the results were not conclusive (probably over too short a time period), so I have relied instead on the longer term external effects.

I think the main point for me was to understand the function of seaweed in its natural environment, and the detailed balance it provides to correct subtle changes in the cow’s constitution. We feed approximately 5 grams per day per cow - and I have about the same!”
The Star & Furrow, the Journal of the Biodynamic Agricultural Association, Issue No. 109, Summer 2008.