Calibrate your feeders and save thousands
Ensuring in-parlour feeders are calibrated correctly has saved one Gloucestershire dairy farmer £12,000 a year in feed costs, reports Debbie James
Dairy producers could be losing thousands of pounds a month by failing to check that in-parlour feeders are delivering exactly what they should be.
Cirencester producer Jo Bennett calibrated his feeders after installing a new feeding system in his 16-point herringbone parlour and was surprised to discover his cows were receiving nearly double their ration because the feeders were inaccurate.
“At the time the organic price was just holding and we needed to increase our margin. We felt there was a lot we could save on feed,” recalls Mr Bennett, who runs an all-year-round calving herd of 120 Holsteins at College Farm.
“Feed was costing us £330/t so we had been wasting about £1,000 a month. We couldn’t believe the figure,” he says.
The feeders were checked infrequently and had not been re-checked since a new, fully computerised control unit was installed. When they were tested for accuracy it was found that some feeders were out by more than 100%.
“It was unbelievable how inaccurate some of the feeders were; it was something I just hadn’t considered. It was costing us a lot of money,” says Mr Bennett.
The feeders are now calibrated every month to make sure they are dispensing what they should be.
NMR records are used as a foundation for setting individual cow allocations. All 16 of the feeder units in the parlour are adjusted accordingly.
Mr Bennett estimates the calibration process takes him about 45min to complete. He calibrates every month when a fresh consignment of feed is delivered as its density can vary and this can affect calibration.
“The feeders can sometimes be inaccurate by 10% when I recalibrate,” Mr Bennett explains.
He decided to revert to conventional production last April and one of the reasons was that it allowed him more feeding options.
Feeding to yield is a central element of the farming system. The new computerised feeder control unit was installed at a cost of £1,500 to allow feed to be fed in 0.1kg drops with greater precision. Cows are fed to a maximum of 4kg a milking.
The role of the diet feeder has come under closer scrutiny and Mr Bennett accepts it has not been calibrated since he bought it. “It is not something we ever thought about, but it makes sense that the accuracy of weighing will be affected over time.” The feeder will be calibrated to ensure the outside diet is accurate.
By feeding more accurately, feed rate has been reduced to 0.22kg/litre and feed use is on target to be reduced by nearly one tonne a cow. With these savings the cost of the new feed unit was met in less than two months.
Emma Thompson of Promar admits that inaccurate feeder calibration is common.
While most machines on farms, including the milking parlour, are serviced annually, most farmers don’t service their feeders at all even though these are machines with moving parts and weigh cells.
She believes it is not a priority because farmers perceive it as a lengthy process or because they may not know how to calibrate.
Feed calibration could be either under or over, resulting in the total a day being correct because different inaccuracies balance each other out.
“Highs may be underfed and lows overfed, so lows could be putting on weight and highs not milking to their full potential or suffering fertility problems. This can mask the overall cost of inaccurate feed allocation,” says Ms Thompson.
In a herd of 150 cows an average of 125 will be in-milk and fed an average of 4kg a day. “If the feeders are out by 10% then this is 0.4kg too much a day. In one year this is 18t, which equates to £4,320 a year if cake is £240 a tonne,” Ms Thompson calculates.
She urges farmers to focus on calibration before cows are on full winter rations. “You can calibrate in parlour, out of parlour or feeder wagons, anything with a weigh cell. The time taken is a small cost compared with the benefit,” she says.
“It is always important to get the feed allocation right to get the best return on investment in feed. This is even more important this year because of higher feed prices and poor silage.”
Read more about calibrating in-parlour and out of parlour feeders