Balancing act | Animals need healthy ratio of forage and barley
Bison finishers should make sure they don’t go overboard feeding barley, says a researcher from Thompson Rivers University.
John Church told the Canadian Bison Association annual convention that health conscious consumers are looking for the nutritional attributes in bison meat. However, those qualities fade if bison aren’t fed the right diet.
“One of the strengths (of bison meat) is that most of the bison producers I’ve looked at, a lot of them are using a very high percentage of forage in their finishing ration, so it’s making the bison meat in general very healthy,” he said in an interview during the convention.
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Feeding forage produces meat containing more omega 3 fatty acids, while feeding barley produces meat with more omega 6.
Church said both are essential, but it’s the ratio of omega 6 over omega 3 that is the key.
The meat isn’t as healthy if the ratio is too high, and the western diet already contains excessive amounts of omega 6.
“We’re taking in far too much of omega 6 at the expense of omega 3,” Church said.
That’s important because both fats compete for the same binding sites in the body.
Eating salmon and other foods high in omega 3 won’t counterbalance the effect of eating too much omega 6, he added.
“It’s all about the balance.”
However, Church said he recognizes that feeding forage sometimes isn’t practical or economical.
Feeding conserved forage will hurt meat quality, even if the bales have been wrapped or used in the form of haylage.
“It’s hard to get the energy to finish an animal on conserved forage,” he said. “There’s probably a nice compromise where we use modest amounts of grain in our finishing rations, so I don’t think we should give up on grain.”
Some grains won’t spike the omega 6 ratio. For example, flax and peas in conjunction with forages are good alternatives. A desirable ratio is about 4:1, he added.
Research conducted by Church and his colleagues shows that the worst ratio was found in commercial chicken breast at about 20:1.
Grain-fed beef came in at between 5:1 and 8:1, while grass-fed ratios were 2:1. Natural chicken was about 10:1.
Church said the high ratios in chicken are also a result of the post-Second World War move to feed more grain to livestock. Chickens had previously tended to scratch out their living on the farm, and insects are “super high” in omega 3.
Salmon are high in omega 3 because they eat small fish that have eaten algae. The omega 6 will in-crease if those same fish are fed grain-based diets.
The bison study compared grain-fed bison, early and late bulls, and grass-fed bison. The grain-fed bison numbers are comparable to beef, while grass-fed bison are much higher in omega 3.
Church said bison weren’t de-signed to eat too much grain, and he is concerned about over-finished animals arriving at the slaughter plant.
