"Gordon Couger" wrote in message ...
"Dave Chalton" wrote in message
om...
Before I go on, maybe I should state where I stand, and where I'm
coming from. I'm not vegan, or vegetarian, though I have numerous
freinds who are one or both, so I understand both sides of the
argument. I'm an Agriculture student, in the UK, and I work on farms,
not just with stock, but arable and mixed farms aswell. Obviously, my
livelihood is dependent in part on continued "meat-eating", or
consumption of dairy products, but the crops produced do not all go to
feed livestock, as some posts on other threads seem to suggest. We do
not import grain from the US, although I cannot say for sure where
everysingle ingredient of the concentrate is sourced from. The cows
form the dairy unit are fed primarily on hay cut on the farm, and
turnips grown on-farm in the winter. Concentrate is also fed,
depending on the stage of the lactation. The beef stock are fed
primarily grass grazing, with big-bale silage in the winter,
supplemented by some concentrate.
As before, more to come at a later date...:-P

A simple question. Are there any difficulties with vagan child bearing and
lactation when taking no supplements of any kind just food. It worked for
eons for regular diets.

Sorry, a bit low on sleep at the moment, not quite sure if we're
talking about cows or humans at this point. Therefore, I'll try to
answer both - as far as I'm aware (and I reiterate the fact that I'm
no expert on anything here), doctors and other healthcare
professionals encourage the likes of folic acid and other supplements
if these are not likely to be provided in sufficient quantities by the
patients standard diet. What are "sufficient quantities" in this
respect? I have no idea, although for doctors to reccomend it would
suggest that at some level, research has suggested that mothers with
an intake of over a certain amount of these substances exhibit less
chance of various complications for both the mother and child. Are
these supplements therefore essential? I would say not, because it is
possible that the diet provides the compounds in sufficient
quantities. Further, it is entirely possible for childbearing, vegan
or otherwise, to go without any complications or problems at all,
without any form of supplement, or indeed medical intervention/advice
of any sort. However I would ask, if a doctor (and I'm the first to
admit that no-one, even trained and qualified doctors, can hope to
know everything about everyone in this respect) suggested that to take
these supplements would reduce possible problems, what would your
response be? To go along the road of saying that whatever practice has
gone on for "eons" would suggest that at least a certain percentage
would survive any problems they did encounter, but how do you put that
to the mother who has lost their child due to such a problem? To her,
that earlier percentage doesn't mean much - in her case it is a 100%
failure. To then say that this problem may have been prevented by a
certain dietary supplement during pregnancy...
I'm not sure if I'm getting this across too well, but that may answer
your question.
With respect to cows, if that was what you were asking, supplements in
the form of concentrate are not fed to ease gestation, calving or
lactation. They are fed to keep the cow in good condition if - and
this is the central point - their intake of whatever their main food
is contains insufficient dry-matter.
Any farmers reading this may be able to back up or refute the
following, but they are the figures used by the Agricultural College I
attend, and they are the primary supplier of research results and
advice in the area.
If a cow has an intake of about 15kgDM/day (where DM is Dry matter),
at approx. 12MJ/kgDM, this is roughly 180MJ/day. Of this, about
75MJ/day is used to keep the cow at stable condition. Obviously this
varies from animal to animal and breed to breed, but for arguments
sake...call it 75. In the case of dairy cows, roughly a further 5MJ/kg
milk produced. So, again for arguments sake and ease of calculation,
say that cow produces 41kg milk per day. That equates to roughly
205MJ, plus the 75 for maintenance, gives 280MJ/day. With the intake
of 180MJ/day, this is a 100MJ short. Left un-checked, that would
result in about 3kg of body weight loss per day, as the cow burn her
own fat reserves, so over a month this is about 90kg - not good by
anyones estimates. So concentrate id fed to balance the output with
intake of DM. Take into acount substitution rates (the cow will eat
less grass for every kg conc. provided) and the picture is not quite
as simple as it looks, but that's the gist of it - roughly :-P