Milk from grazed grass cheapest
Milk from grazed grass cheapest
GRAZING management is difficult compared with ordering brewers grains over the phone, but grass costs less.
Nigel Young, Kingshay Farming Trust technical director, said early lactation cows had enormous scope to produce milk from grazing. They could produce 16 litres from grass in early spring and 28 litres at peak.
Getting cows out early, for 2.5 hours a day, gave proven benefits. At the Agricultural Research Institute in Northern Ireland, this practice was worth one litre a cow in late lactation and 2 litres for early lactation cows, between late February and mid-April. There were also improvements in milk quality and savings in silage.
But management is tough. "You have to manage it right to keep the ME high, when it is abused and there is a stubble it will be below 11ME," he warned.
There were often reasons given on farms to not make better use of grass, but for many of these there were solutions, added Mr Young.
Poaching, particularly in gateways, was often a reason to delay turnout. But when cows went in and out of a different gateway the problem was reduced, he said. Cows would also poach less if they were brought in when they stopped eating grass.