The Cobiotex 410 bacterial complex in bedding: a way to save on straw

Météo-France reports that June was the hottest month ever recorded (+3.8°C above the 1991-2020 average), with a rainfall deficit of nearly 50%. These conditions therefore have a direct impact on crops: lower straw yields, scorched pastures, weak second cuts, and reduced silage maize all shrink the forage resources available for animals. As a result, farmers must start feeding earlier and dip into stocks meant for winter. Straw serves a dual purpose: it is needed for bedding, but can also become a supplementary roughage when grass and silage run short, as will be the case this winter through to next spring. This competing demand is heightening local tensions, already reported, in particular in Charente, by the Chamber of Agriculture in July 2026.

Optimizing bedding use is therefore becoming a concrete lever, recommended by research institutes (IDELE – the French Livestock Institute) and Chambers of Agriculture. (sources below)

The solution for saving straw

Made up of lactic acid bacteria and spore-forming bacteria, Cobiotex 410 and Cobiotex Elit’ are applied to the floor, sometimes to the walls in specific situations, and to the freshly laid straw bedding. These beneficial micro-organisms take up the available space first and shift the building’s bacterial balance in favor of positive bacteria, at the expense of pathogenic bacteria, through spatial and nutritional competition.

By stabilizing the bedding, these bacterial complexes slow its degradation: mucking-out is spaced further apart, and the amount added at each bedding-down is reduced — a straw saving of 15 to 20%.

This figure varies depending on stocking density, building ventilation, ambient humidity, and how rigorously the protocol is followed.

By steering the environment toward a favorable flora, the pathogenic pressure responsible for many environmental diseases (mastitis, lameness, or omphalitis in young animals) is reduced. The bedding releases less ammonia; respiratory problems decrease. When the environment stays microbiologically stable and balanced, humidity peaks are kept in check — avoiding a well-known spiral: humidity stimulates bacterial hydrolysis, more bedding is added to compensate, and this excess bedding ends up saturating the litter and driving humidity back up. By controlling this spiral at its source, it becomes possible to save straw and improve animal comfort.

Steering fermentation in a positive direction also limits the production of free water in the litter. In practical terms, the bedding stays dry longer between two applications, liquid manure runoff is reduced, and the animals stay cleaner — a situation favorable to milk quality and to preventing lameness.

Bacterial solutions are effective mainly according to how consistently they are applied, rather than to any single dose — and their use in no way replaces proper management of building ventilation.

Health monitoring over several months (mastitis, somatic cell counts, lameness, etc.) is the best way to objectively assess improvements in the herd and to measure straw savings.