In December last year we attended the Cremona International Livestock Exhibition in Italy. Our colleague Ivan Nekoksa contributed with a session on solutions to reduce occurrence of metabolic diseases in ruminant production.
We asked Ivan three quick questions about the topic. Here’s what he said.
What causes metabolic diseases in livestock?
A negative balance of certain nutrients in animals’ diets, together with the ever more expressed problem of climate change, have a negative impact on the productivity of livestock. Climate change is a problem that causes many environmental issues including the lower productivity of livestock. One of the major issues associated with climate change is an increase of the frequency of hot days and heat waves, which increases the risk of heat stress for livestock animals. During this heat stress period, the occurrence of metabolic diseases is much higher.
Which are the most common metabolic diseases?
Diseases like ketosis and acidosis, are the most prevalent diseases in high productive animals. To minimize the risk of metabolic diseases such as ketosis and acidosis it is recommended to use easily available energy additives and heat stress facilitating additives.
Which solutions do Brenntag offer?
We recommend using our Neubalac range of products, which consists in products containing heat stress facilitating additives. With Neubalac products, we tackle both Ketosis (with propylene glycol based solutions) and Acidosis (by modulating rumen microflora). Neubalac is a highly concentrated propylene glycol and part of our own specialty range. Supplementing daily ration through Neubalac brings several positive effects, including increasing glucose and decreasing ketones body concentration in blood serum.
Want to learn more about Neubalac? Download our brochure to learn more.
Ivan Nekoksa
Ivan is comes from a farmers family specialized in pig production for dried meat products. His carreer specialisation is based on „from field to fork“ strategy working in integrations of animal production and processing industries. Throughout his career he's dealt in depth with feed production, farm management and grain processing.
In 2017 Ivan joined our Animal Nutrition team in Croatia, Slovenia and Bosnia & Herzegovina covering both animal nutrition and agriculture integrations. He now holds the position of Business Development Specialist for Europe, Middle East & Africa.