Sugar is the fastest digesting form of energy. The sugar intake of a cow eating spring grass is widely understood to pose a risk of acidosis, leading to depressed intake, milk yield and butterfat yield. The irony is that the cow continues to eat the grass because it is sweet and tasty but can’t utilise all the nutrients it is eating and so excretes these nutrients as loose faeces.

The nutritional make up of grass changes every day dependant on growing and weather conditions, therefore it is extremely difficult to ensure that the cow is getting the right balance of nutrients on a daily basis.

Grazed grass is bulky and wet. Most cows can’t fulfil their potential dry matter intake from wet grass because they can’t process the volume of fresh weight required to supply their nutritional demands.

NIS contains 35% Digestible Crude Fibre. This fibre ferments much more slowly than sugar and so is able to slow the fermentation of all ingredients in the rumen and dilute the fast-fermenting sugar. More importantly the slower fermentation allows the rumen to utilise the nutrients supplied by the grass instead of excreting it as loose dung.

NIS is a very consistent feed ingredient made under tightly controlled factory conditions. If NIS is included into the diet of cows at grass it makes the diet more consistent, optimising nutrient intake.

Although NIS is a forage, it has been pelleted and is a constant 90% dry matter content, therefore NIS does not have the ‘gut fill’ effect of grass, hay and straw and can significantly increase dry matter intakes. NIS is salty and so cows will readily eat it at grass without the need to ‘hide’ it in an energy blend. As NIS comes as a high quality pellet it can be fed in a TMR, as part of a blend in the parlour, or even ad lib.