Herbs in grassland and health of the dairy herd - Part 1: The potential medicinal value of pasture herbs

Jan-Paul Wagenaar. 2012. Herbs in grassland and health of the dairy herd - Part 1: The potential medicinal value of pasture herbs. Louis Bolk Instituut, Driebergen.
Pagina's / pages: 5
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Taal/language: Engels
Abstract / summary in English:

In the period April - October 2011 Sibilla Laldi (MSc-student WUR) carried out the research project ‘Herbs in grasslands and health of the dairy herd’, a project of the Louis Bolk Institute. In this project the relation between pastures herbs and health of dairy cattle was studied on 22 dairy farms. An indicator was developed which combines the presence of individual herbs expressed as a percentage of pasture dry matter and the potential medicinal value of a herb.
"The results indicate that pasture herbs do contribute to animal health. A relation was found between the new indicator and the use of antibiotics at farm level (expressed as Animal Daily Doses per year): the higher the share of herbs in the pasture dry matter, the lower the use of antibiotics. This finding offers perspective to grow or promote more herbs in pasture. Future research will focus on the effective contribution of specific herbs to the health of dairy cattle.

Keywords in English: grassland, herbs, animal health