Advice on eking out forage supplies for winter
© Tim Scrivener Beef and dairy farmers with poor forage stocks need to budget now – not wait until the new year when marketplace supplies are running low and prices are even higher.
See also: Advice for beef winter rations as feed shortages loom large
Nutritionist Luppo Diepenbroek says it is important that farmers act without delay.
They should speak to their nutritionist to budget feed stocks, analyse silages, allocate them correctly and purchase inputs based on feed value (kilograms of energy or protein) rather than simply buy in silage.
“Get your plans in place now,” he says. “Sit down with your nutritionist – don’t wait till later, as everything will be more expensive by January or February, when other farms who are short of forage will have run out.”
As well as accurately calculating silage quantities on hand, and feed demand over winter, Luppo says analysing silage will help establish palatability and intake factor.
He has seen some good-quality silages made this year and, as a result, cows are likely to eat 10-20% more.
“It’s a double whammy, as this year it means you are going to run out of silage quicker,” he points out.
© Tim Scrivener
Feed options
To help eke out supplies, Luppo says beef units could put store cattle on cereals, as barley is relative cheap at the moment.
“Or, get rid of animals now while store prices are good. Don’t dwindle silage stocks by overwintering on silage that you might need for suckler cows and calves.”
Allocating the right forage quality to the right class of stock means that dry cows, for instance, can eat hay.
More has been made this summer, making prices reasonable – as low as £130/t in some areas.
“It pays to feed more compound to milking cows as there will be a substitution effect, to bulk out grazing and silage,” he says. “For instance, palm kernel can be fed at 4-6kg a head a day, and this will extend forage stocks.”
But it is essential to look at the cost based on a unit of energy – hay might have metabolisable energy of 9MJ/kg dry matter (DM), or it could be 10.5MJ/kg DM, giving more value for money.
“If you feed a lot of forage, don’t forget you need 16% crude protein in the ration, so if you are buying in forage, analyse it,” Luppo advises.
© MAG/Judith Tooth
One bright spot, he says, is that maize harvest is three weeks earlier than normal in the south-west of England.
“Put Westerwolds in, and this could give a grazing or even a silage cut in October, or a very early grass crop next year in January or February,” he points out.
Advice on feeding cow leftovers to heifers
Dairy farms that are short of forage and tempted to reduced waste by recycling cow leftovers to heifers are advised not to – unless they are good at precision rationing and accurate mixing.
As a long-term policy, it is preferable to feed a heifer-specific total mixed ration, or stick to straw and cake, says vet and researcher Dr Ginny Sherwin, clinical associate professor in farm animal medicine at the University of Nottingham.
“Cow diets are pretty pokey, supplying energy for maintenance plus 35 litres, which is too much energy for heifers – they can’t convert it into lean growth,” she points out.
Another issue with cow refusals is their palatability and exposure to cow saliva, and possibly birds, wildlife and farm cats.
They will certainly be unhygienic and may be growing bacteria or moulds, she adds.
“Why have they been left? Have they got wet or gone off in the heat – after 12 hours, you can get steaming piles of feed. Have you got a low level of mycotoxins? Has the feed been sorted by the cows, or will the heifers sort it?”
Rumen development
Ginny explains that heifer calves are programmed for lean growth in their first six to nine months.
After that, their feed conversion efficiency drops, and they tend to convert excess energy into fat. The result is over-conditioned heifers that can have calving difficulties and poor first lactation performance.
“We recommend not to start feeding silage until six months because we want the rumen to be developed enough – it doesn’t fully develop until a heifer is about 13 months of age.
“The [young] heifer can’t yet ferment and metabolise silage to get the energy from it. They are best kept on straw – or grazed grass – and a readily digestible pellet to keep the rumen developing.”
Energy calculations
However, she says farms good at precision feeding and meticulous mixing will be able to predict their refusals consistently in both nutrient content and quantity. This means that, provided the ration has not been spoiled, it is possible to calculate how to dilute it for feeding safely to heifers.
“There are a lot of pitfalls, and it has to be done properly, as you need to work out how much energy is in it, how much the heifer needs for maintenance and growth,” she says.
“If you really have to feed leftovers, you can dilute it with clean straw – not from the mouldy bales on the outside of the stack – chopped to a heifer’s muzzle width, so that they can’t sort the feed. But remember that, with dry diets, they need sufficient water trough space to encourage intakes.”