By-products can replace feed cereals

Cereals can be replaced with maize dried distillers grains, soya hulls, and palm kernel meal in the diet of grazing dairy cows without adverse effect, according to UCD and Teagasc researchers.

The maximum inclusion level of soya hulls in a barley-based beef ration is about 200g/kg, when offered as a supplement to grass silage of moderate nutritive value, and similarly when in a high concentrate diet, said the nutrition exprets, at the recent conference in Tullamore on Advances in Knowledge and Technologies for Agriculture, organised by Teagasc, UCD and the Agricultural Science Association.

The UCD and Teagasc Grange team found that the optimum inclusion of maize dried distillers grains, offered as a supplement to moderate digestibility grass silage, is up to 800g/kg, and up to 200g/kg as a high-concentrate diet for finishing beef cattle.