Cows need a certain amount of fibre to ensure rumen fuctions properly. Minimum fibre requirements for cows are shown below:

Fibre measurement vs minimum amount of dietary fibre (%DM)

Neutral Detergent Fibre: 30%

Acid Detergent Fibre: 19%

Crude Fibre: 17%

• Low fibre, high starch diets will cause the cow's rumen to be acidic.

• Grain poisoning, also known as acidosis my occur.

• One way to combat this is by adding buffers such as sodium bicarbonate to the diet to help reduce acidity.

• Buffers are usually recommended when grain feeding per day is more than 4 - 5kg grain/cow.

• Buffers are not a substitute for fibre.

• Hence, long term feeding of low fibre diet should be avoided if possible.