Most of you will be familiar with the adage, “There is the diet you plan, the diet you offer, and the diet the cows eat!”. In addition, there is also the diet that the cows digest as digestion can be affected by non-diet factors like THI. These differences aren’t great for the cow, aren’t great for production and aren’t great for the bottom line.
At Dairy Club we are working on a substantial project to help dairy farmers reduce the variability between these steps and deliver a better bottom line.
What’s the problem?
At each stage of the cycle, what start as small errors in the diet formulation, can grow into big inefficiencies. Keeping the cycle tight and timely helps correct errors before they escalate and the herd drops off the tracks.
Cows are great at adapting over time, so making too many changes too often to the diet can cause more problems. So tackling the problem needs a careful approach.
Critical to success is how well the planned ration has understood the targetted production from the start.
The quicker the feedback between the results of the effect of the diet (Milk yield, fat, protein, lactose etc. Fertility, health etc.) the easier it is to keep the herd on track.
We are familiar with the substantial benefits of the rapid feedback between the planned diet and the offered diet. This is seen with many of the newer mixer wagons which can monitor actual inputs into the mix. Even small variances in ingredient quantities can make a significant difference o the diet. The order in which the ingredients are loaded can also alter the physical nature of the diet, which, in turn, affects digestion and the nutrients absorbed.
Unfortunately, on-farm, not everyone has one of these systems fitted to their mixer wagon.
For many grazing herds, data is missing on what grass covers cows are actually going into. Many farmers have an excellent ‘eyeometer’ and are good at judging through experience, but this isn’t always the case. Technolgy has supplied us with plonked, trailed, droned and satelite data on grass covers. The options are there if we use them. Grass quality is also hugely variable between fields, within field and day to day.
During grazing, cows by nature, selectively graze. This isn’t great for utilisation, nor does it lead to a balanced diet. Similarly cows on a PMR/TMR will, given chance, sort the feed to pick out the goodies! This again leads to problems.
Rationing rationing!
In practice, many diets are drawn up to feed an average animal in the herd or a group. Yet, the diet needs to supply the needs of all the individuals. Balancing the TMR, PMR, in-parlour, OOP and grazing to supply each individual with the right nutrition has improved significantly in the last 10 years. But there is still more that could be done.
If we look at how often the ration is re-evaluated on many farms, the frequency is not enough. By the time issues are flagged, production, fertility and health can have gone off track. As you know, it can cost more to get cows back on track once they have dropped.
Is a monthly visit by the feed rep or consultant sufficient to keep on track?
Changes on-farm week to week and sometimes day to day may require an adjustment of the diet. The person adjusting the diets needs to have their finger on the pulse. This isn’t just from a nutritional point of view, but also in terms of margin achieved.
The number of dairy costed herds has dropped significantly over the years. This used to be a key sevice by feed companies. But now it is often viewed as too much effort or that the results highlight margins that are too low.
Costings are an important part of rationing!
Below is a view of the Kingshay Milk Map. Plotted on it are the herds from one random page of Kingshay’s Dairy Costings, Special Interest Group. Out of the 18 farms costed, two thirds (12) sit firmly in the bottom half of the banding (red dots)!
The herds in the upper half of the Milk Map achieved a Margin Over Purchased Feed per cow ~25% greater than the ones marked red.
Now, every herd is different, but there is much opportunity for the red farms to improve margin by improving production and/or reducing purchased feed. Are these farms happy where they are?
For these herds, what if?:
- we dropped back in purchased feed use by 250kg/hd;
- increased feed cost by £10/t (assuming we get a better quality feed!) and;
- increased milk yield by 200 litres?
This would be worth over £34,000 extra MOPF (equivalent to ~1.9ppl on the milk price) to each of these farms on average.If you have not yet tried out our What If? Tool then click here.
Looking forward
If farms are looking to improve, then something needs to change. Moving on the Milk Map starts with understanding why the herd is where it is.
Once the main limitations have been identified then create a plan and set up the monitoring. Dairy Club’s Tracker program incorporates milk forecasting, feed planning, rationing, forage planning, real time dairy costings, and individual cow analysis. All this has been designed for farmers to use.
Earlier versions of Tracker found great success with farmers keeping production on track by doing their own rationing. Farmer training days for rationing and feed planning helped provide increased confidence.
The latest version benefits from the latest advancements in coding and AI to build in more descision support 24/7. There is also human help available if required.
Most importantly, its quick and easy to use.