Practical Management of Prepartum Anionic Diets for Dairy Cattle

Abstract

Feeding anionic diets to prepartum dairy cows has become a common strategy to prevent parturient paresis. However, implementing anionic diets in the field is challenging. Feeding anionic salts will help prevent  parturient paresis (Block 1984, Dishington 1975, Oetzel et al 1988) and perhaps improve calcium homeostasis by increasing ionized calcium levels at parturition (Oetzel et al, 1988, Beede et al, 1992), but the mechanism of action of the anionic salts has not been clearly defined. Since the mechanism of action is not defined a number of questions arise during manipulation of the dietary cation-anion difference (DCAD).