The cost of feeding liquid milk cows has had the most significant increase this year in autumn-calving herds.
To help offset some of these extra costs that farmers face, the importance of getting diet correct on farms was highlighted at a Teagasc National Winter Milk Week event earlier this week.
At the event in Co. Meath, Philip Brady from Teagasc spoke to the farmers about winter diet and ensuring that it is set correctly.
Brady said that in every herd there will be some amount of variation in yields and that diets should not be set to match the higher-yielding cows.
Instead, baseline diets should be set to match the average cow in the herd and higher yields can then be topped up with additional concentrates.
At the event it was noted that the cost of feeding a liquid milk cow has increased by €300/cow, and if farmers are overfeeding cows this will increase further.
Brady said that this is an opportunity to decrease the cost of feeding lower yielders, while also maximising milk from forage.
Grouping cows
To ensure that farmers are feeding cows the correct amounts of concentrates or blends, grouping cows is a good system.
Rather than feeding extra concentrates in the parlour, the extra concentrates/blend can be given via the forage.
However, this can only be done when cows are grouped, so farmers can ensure that the correct cows are eating the concentrates/blend.
Feeding cows extra concentrates/blend has many benefits, most notably being that cows are at a lower risk of acidosis.
Liquid milk
Another key message for farmers from Brady was the importance of making high-quality silage.
Higher dry matter digestibility (DMD) silage means that higher levels of production can be achieved with reduced levels of concentrates.
On farms where poorer-quality silage is made, more concentrates are required to maintain levels of production.
Farmers producing liquid milk should aim to produce the highest-quality silage possible, which should then mean that less concentrates are required to maintain production levels.
Although milk price is quite good this year, the level of concentrates required to improve poorer-quality silage may not be sustainable with a lower milk price.
This is why going forward, liquid milk producers need to focus on making the highest-quality silage possible.