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Dan Smith called us last week worried about his fodder situation. He has 25 suckler cows and their 24 weanling calves to carry over the winter. Dan normally requires winter feeding for six months (15 October to 15 April). However, all of his stock have been housed since 1 September.
Protein shouldn’t be an issue with suckler cows
His normal requirement for silage is 311t and he had 330t saved. However, the extra six weeks indoors have added almost 80t on to his total winter silage requirement, which is now 389t. He needs 85 extra bales to get him to his usual turnout date and has found a seller.
What should he do?
We, at the Irish Farmers Journal, have been inundated with calls from farmers in a very similar position to Dan recently.
The most common question is ‘‘how much should I pay for bales?’’ The answer is always the same.
Do you have a test?
While Irish winter feeding strategies centre around grass silage, the reality is that it is a frustrating feed. It is one of the most variable feeds that we can offer our animals from a nutrient value point of view.
Yes, good grass silage is an excellent feed for cattle, providing sufficient energy, protein and roughage to be fed on its own in many cases. However, poor and even moderate quality grass silage typically won’t support the desired levels of performance that we need, without significant concentrate supplementation.
If Dan is to buy in silage, he must first determine the quality of material coming in. But herein lies the problem – only a small portion of the silage produced in Ireland is tested.
Should Dan opt for these bales of grass silage, he must get a test done before purchasing. Thankfully, most feed mills and co-ops have on-site NIR machines nowadays. These will give produce instant feed value results.
Dan’s dry cows need 64% to 66% DMD grass silage in order to maintain condition, consuming around 46kg of fresh weight daily (11.5kg DM).
Dan is currently feeding his own 66% DMD first cut to his cows and 68% DMD second cut to his weanlings. Both are at 25% dry matter.
He has 215t of first cut (66% DMD) and 115t of second cut (68% DMD).
Bale seller
The bale seller agreed to test the silage for him before he purchased and the results returned bales that were 30% dry matter and 65% DMD. The seller wants €28/bale (4 x 4 round).
Dan contacted us wondering if this represented good value. This first thing I asked Dan was whether he had the capacity to store concentrate feed. He said that he had a small machinery store that he could adapt.
Dan’s best option is to use small square bales and polythene sheeting to create a pop-up storage area. Importantly, the building must be completely sealable to comply with regulations.
Next, I asked Dan to get a quote from his feed mill on rolled barley. He came back with a quote of €195/t.
As it shows in Table 1, when we’re buying energy, barley at €195/t is cheaper than 65% DMD, 30% dry matter silage bales at €28 per bale. But how much barley can Dan feed? He was hesitant as he had never fed big levels of concentrates to stock and was worried about acidosis and birds.
My advice to Dan was to focus on his cows. At present, he is feeding his weanlings 2.5kg of a 16% protein concentrate, along with ad lib 68% DMD grass silage.
I told him to switch these weanlings on to the poorer quality (66% DMD) silage for one month and feed an extra 0.5kg of concentrate per head. This means that their diet is kept relatively consistent (they can stay on grass silage all winter) and we don’t risk any deficiency in protein by diluting the diet with rolled barley.
Protein shouldn’t be an issue with suckler cows. So an ingredient such as grass silage can be replaced with rolled barley in dry cow diets without any other supplement required.
I told Dan that he shouldn’t replace more than half of his cows’ diet with concentrate feed, in order to keep their rumens working right, and to start off at 2kg when introducing the barley and add 0.5kg every three days until he reaches his target feeding level.
Dan can replace 20kg of fresh grass silage daily (5kg DM) with 3.75kg of rolled barley in his dry cows’ diet. This frees up 0.5t of grass silage per day across his 25 cows. With four months until his projected turnout date, that’s an extra 61t of grass silage freed up – bang on the money for what Dan requires.
Dan is due to begin calving in March. I told him that his best option would be to top up his barley with 1kg of a magnesium nut (~16% crude protein) for freshly calved cows that weren’t going to be getting to grass in the weeks after calving.
It is also important that he introduces dry cow minerals eight weeks from the onset of calving.
Alternatives
Table 2 looks at the options for replacing silage, costed at two rolled barley prices. Take care that many of these require supplementation with long fibre, protein and/or energy and may have low maximum feeding rates. In terms of fodder stretcher rations, the research says that the ingredients included in these (digestible fibre-like soya hulls, maize gluten, rapeseed, etc) will not ‘‘stretch’’ silage any more or less than rolled barley will, so pay attention to the price when purchasing.
Yes, the ingredients in these are generally safer but the principles and risks around building up cattle on any concentrate ration or ingredient safely are the same. Performance on rolled barley will almost certainly be better than a fodder stretcher ration, though the latter may tick boxes from a mineral and vitamin point of view. By choosing rolled barley, we are also supporting Irish grain farmers.
SHARING OPTIONS: