It is easy to get carried away feeding concentrates for your winter milk herd, however the diet should be adjusted based on the quality of silage being fed and the yield of the cow.
Concentrate feeding is essential for your winter milk herd but it can be very costly and can be the difference in margins if it is overfed or underfed.
Hitting the sweet spot is crucial when feeding concentrates, as if you are feeding too much, there is not going to be any more benefit in production and it will be wasteful and expensive on the farmer.
Winter milking can be a fine margin game, and the input and feed costs can be high when cows are milking through the winter and so, extra costs are unnecessary and should be avoided.
Concentrates should be fed in the correct amounts to the correct cows, with higher yielders getting higher feeding rates.
Concentrates
Feeding less concentrates starts with having good quality silage to feed your milking cows, as less energy will be required to bridge the gap in the diet.
The benefits of higher dry matter digestibility (DMD) silage are well-proven, as it leads to increased forage intake, more milk solids and milk from forage, better rumen health and lower concentrate feeding levels.
Average silage quality on farms is always in and around 68% DMD and the wide variation in the level of concentrate fed at farm level is based on the variation in silage quality.
The typical 600kg cow will require 7.5kg of concentrate to produce 30kg of milk on 75% DMD silage, whereas that requirement would be 10kg if the silage was 65% DMD.
The concentrate feeding levels at different levels of silage quality and different yields, as per Teagasc, are as follows:
Milk yield 65% DMD 70% DMD 75% DMD 20L 5.5kg 4.0kg 3.0kg 25L 8.0kg 6.5kg 5.5kg 30L 10.0kg 8.5kg 7.5kg 35L 12.5kg 11.0kg 10.0kg
Typically, every five unit drop in DMD will need 1.0-1.5kg extra concentrates to compensate for the lower energy level.
Of course, the more litres a cow is producing, the more of an energy demand and dry matter intake (DMI) she will require to keep that level of production going.
Where silage quality is poor, forage intake levels will reduce and it’s important to monitor neutral detergent fibre (NDF) levels in the diet and if there is a drop identified, extra fibre sources should be fed.
There are significant challenges in meeting energy requirements in situations like this, and so the likes of straw or extra beet pulp should be added to the cow’s diet.
Feed strategy
Farmers should check the milk yield distribution for their own herd using winter milk recording data before setting their feeding strategy.
You should test your silage as soon as possible so you know what the value of your silage is and how much silage your cows are going to need to meet their nutritional demand.
This will help you formulate a plan for winter and save on unnecessary spending on concentrates.
Extra concentrates can then be saved and utilised on higher yielding cows, feeding according to their yield and maximising profits by utilising your concentrates effectively.
The first step to any feed plan, is getting your silage tested and ensuring that each cow is meeting her nutrient demand, while minimising spending on concentrates, as good quality forage makes it easier to meet UFL and DMI intake targets.