The predominant diet for spring-calving cows still in milk is middling-quality silage and a few kilos of meal. I say middling-quality silage because that’s the reality of the situation on most farms.

In fact, calling some of the silage out there middling is probably an injustice to good-quality silage.

The difference between good-quality and bad-quality silage is huge and even in late-lactation cows could result in a difference of two to three litres of milk per cow per day.

Budgeting

It’s easy to say 'feed the best-quality silage to milking cows', but this may not be the best advice. A bit like budgeting grass for the spring, the good-quality silage should be budgeted for the spring also.

Some farmers target 1.25 good-quality bales per cow for the spring. This means that if the farmer has 120 cows, he will seek to have 150 good-quality bales for feeding to milking cows on wet nights and days or when grass needs to be stretched in late March.

Don’t use up all your good-quality bales now

So don’t use up all your good-quality bales now. A bit like grass, these bales are more valuable next spring.

Giving freshly-calved cows poor-quality forage is like putting dirty diesel in the tractor – it’ll wreck performance and you’ll still be paying for it three months later - in the case of the cow, via lower protein percentage.

Good-quality silage refers to silage that’s over 70% DMD. In most cases, this is from bales cut from young leafy grass in May and early June. Generally, silage made later in the year, even from leafy grass, is lower in DMD.

Milking off their back

The fear is that where silage quality is not as good, then cows will be milking off their back and losing body condition score. This should be avoided at all costs, even foregoing milk sales for December.

Cows that are calving in early February should be dried off now. First-lactation cows will need a longer dry spell, so these should be dried off soon too, even if they are not calving until later in the spring.

Any cow that is calving in February and at a body condition score of 2.75 or below should be a candidate for drying off.

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