Dairy focus: Winter proofing feed plans and managing milk quality concerns
As we head towards the last rotation of the year, attention turns to plans for housing for the winter.
Despite the very difficult year, there are lots of building projects being undertaken on farms this year.
As one man said to me last week, âthe show must go on, sure wont I need the facilities for many years to come, and I wonât be paying for it for just the one yearâ.
You really canât beat a bit of positivity.
Undoubtedly, this coming winter will put considerable financial strain on many farm businesses.
Many will consider milking through the winter this year in order to improve cashflow as there will be plenty of bills to pay.
Itâs not going to suit everybody but should be taken into consideration particularly if cows are milking well and if late calvers are going to end up with very long dry periods.
A cow dry for a long time is an expensive animal and if she calved late in 2018 and is dried off after only milking for six to seven months, should she really be on your farm at all?
I have been doing a lot of feed budgets for customers over the last few weeks and one thing is clear, most are very tight on feed supplies based on a 150-day winter.
Now this is where the positivity kicks in again, many are budgeting for a four-month winter and hoping for the best!
Letâs be realistic with any planning, last year animal housing commenced in the middle of October (Ophelia hit on the 16th) and many of the animals housed on those days did not get turned out again until early April.
So, if we look at the 16th of October to St Patricks day thatâs 152 days.
If you add or subtract two weeks from either end, then you will get a winter-feeding length ranging from 124 days up to 180 days.
Thatâs a 56-day difference between the two extremes.
Now obviously all of this depends on your current grass supply, stocking rate and your land type.
Just to put it in context, a 120-cow herd requiring 50kg of silage per cow per day will require an extra 336 Tonnes of silage if the winter is 180 days versus a 124-day winter.
Each week longer indoors will require 42 tonne of silage or 60 bales. And thatâs before we look at the requirements of any replacements and other stock that are on the farm.
It really is worth revisiting your feed budget on a regular basis and adjusting it based on feed usage along with extra forage saved and/or purchased. The best advice is to secure all of your requirements sooner rather than later and plan based on a longer feeding period rather than a short winter.
A lot of dairy producers will be dealing with unfamiliar ingredients over this coming winter.
Maize Silage, Whole crop cereals and Alfalfa Hay will all be fed on farms for the first time this winter.
Firstly, it is worth remembering that these products will more than likely be higher in energy than most grass silages produced in Ireland this year. Obviously, there will be exceptions where silage was made in the first half of May and this will be of excellent quality.
I have seen it over the years where a new ingredient arrives into a yard and the farmer canât wait to try it out. Resist that temptation, high energy feeds will give best results when fed to fresh calvers next year before they head to grass and as a complement to grass when still in by night or as a buffer once on grass full time.
It makes no sense to feed Maize or Whole Crop to late lactation cows and end up feeding average silage to cows next spring.
In that scenario you will either have to feed a lot of meal to get them to milk well or compromise on yield and composition by not supplying sufficient energy.
Apart from the Alfalfa hay, these alternative forages are lower in protein than grass silage so balancing diets will be different to the usual winter feeding on most farms.
Many will also be feeding much higher volumes of straw to stock than they traditionally would have. Two groups of stock will be targeted for straw feeding, young stock and dry cows. In both cases it is important that you feed sufficient protein. In the growing young stock if you donât supply sufficient protein then appetites will be poor and target frame growth will not be achieved.
In dry cows, under feeding of protein will result in poor bag down, lower quality colostrum for the new born calf and poor intakes post calving, resulting in poor milking performance in early lactation.
Those feeding/grazing Kale, Rape or Redstart for the first time will also need to look at how best they can balance these for the animals being fed. All of these are low in dry matter and supplementary feeding of concentrates and/or a forage may be necessary to maintain animal performance.
Those feeding new ingredients on farm this winter will also need to consider their mineral supplementation strategy as the mineral profile of the above-mentioned ingredients will be different to a typical grass silage-based diet.
The Brassicas in particular will need to balance for iodine as they are Goitrogens and will interfere with Iodine uptake in the animal.
A bolus containing iodine is a common method of addressing this issue. This may also be done through additional iodine in any concentrate being fed.
Some have invested in a diet feeder for the coming winter, make sure you are using it properly, seek advice if you are unsure of how to utilise it correctly. A badly operated feeder can be detrimental in the wrong hands!
