December 3, 2007

Rising feed costs weighing down on feed efficiency

Soaring feed costs coupled with feed being the largest single cost of milk production means that feed efficiency should be the focal point of dairy producers.

Dr Andrew Pine, director of the ruminant division at Premier Nutrition, said feed efficiency is an "important and relevant issue" as he predicted milk prices, in the long term, would settle at a lower level than they are now and added.

Dr Pine said that the pig, poultry and beef industries had been benchmarking the conversion of feed ingredients into the finished product for years and the strategy should be adopted by the dairy industry.

He said all the information required to benchmark was milk production on the unit and the feed used including forage and concentrates taking into account feed refusals.

This information should be calculated monthly for the best results and could take different forms on different farms.

He emphasised that feed storage and handling on farm needs to needs to be focused on including feed spoilage, spillage, heating and mixing and weighing.

Pine said that targets to improve feed efficiency should be set according to each farm and solutions could included better diet structuring, correct mixing and weighing, dry cow management and cow grouping and also the use of strategic parlour feeding combined with partial TMR rationing to drive efficiency forward.

Dr Richard Vecqueray, director of the Evidence Based Veterinary Consultancy, looked at some practical management issues involved with feeding, which he said were widely acknowledged but rarely put into practice.

Dr Vecqueray focused on feed presentation and said trough space and the materials used for feed troughs should be noted. On average trough space needed to be 1.6 foot and one of the highest yielding herds he had monitored had trough space of 2.6 foot. He also said studies had demonstrated that cows eat more off smooth, light coloured surfaces.