Watch: fodder savings to be made with silage analysis

By now, all programme farms have their spring-calving cows scanned. In the majority of cases, cows that scanned empty are well into a short period of intensive finishing.

With silage analysis now complete across farms, winter feed plans have been drawn up to ensure different cattle groups are being fed the correct level of silage to achieve the desired levels of performance.

Where silage is in short supply or of poor quality, the best silage is being targeted towards priority stock.

One area where farmers often fail to save on silage is with dry cows. Where cows are weaned at a body condition score that is higher than the ideal for spring calving, then there are considerable savings to be made by restricting intakes.

Feed to match requirements

The same applies where silage quality is good and has a high dry matter energy value. Rather than feeding additional energy that the cow does not require, silage should be restricted to match what the cow requires, thereby saving valuable forage.

In the case of Gary Agnew, who is featured below, his cows typically weigh 650kg liveweight.

At this weight, cows could eat 36kg/day of the first-cut silage on farm if fed on an ad-lib basis.

However, as the cows would only require 72 to 89 Mj ME from 15 to six weeks pre-calving, the cows would become fat as the first-cut silage would supply too much energy. Therefore, the cow would gain excessive condition.

Instead, to meet the cow’s energy demand, silage is being restricted to around 60% of their intake potential so that cows maintain body condition rather than gain flesh.

Dates for diary

BETTER Farm Beef Challenge NI Mart Demos. Three livestock demonstrations focusing on cattle management and winter feeding. All events run from 7.30pm to 9.30pm:

Lisnaskea, Co Fermanagh

Like many farmers in this area, I had to house cattle much earlier than I would have liked due to poor ground conditions. All animals, apart from five in-calf heifers, were housed by mid-September.

These five heifers that remain out were scanned in-calf and purchased in August. They are settled at grass without causing significant damage. At the same time, they are cleaning off excess covers on some of my drier paddocks.

The group is averaging 510kg liveweight and as they will not calve until late February, at two years old, I am hoping to keep them out as long as possible, providing they are not poaching land.

Moving to 50 cows

I am phasing out my autumn-calving herd and moving to a complete spring-calving system. I have purchased nine in-calf heifers so far to add to 10 of my own heifers which are scanned in calf.

I hope to add a further seven animals to this by calving time next spring. I want to get 50 cows and calves on the ground next year. Cows will be served with Charolais and Angus stock bulls.

For simplicity, I am going to continue purchasing replacements rather than go down the route of breeding my own.

My spring herd had an average calving date of 28 February this year. All of these calves have now been weaned.

All cows and calves were weighed at the end of August. Bull calves averaged 1.27kg/day and heifers averaged 1.07kg/day up to weaning, with creep feeders introduced to the bulls from early September.

Bulls are currently eating 5kg of a 16% blend along with first-cut silage (see Table 1). They will be gradually stepped up to towards ad-lib feeding by late January.

At this point, they will be fed a higher starch based 12% protein blend with the aim of finishing them under 16 months next May. Heifer calves are also being fed 1.5kg/day of the same 16% blend which bulls are currently being offered along with first cut silage.

Cows were weighed prior to weaning to get a handle on how efficient they are in terms of weaning performance. By correcting calf weaning weights to 200 days and dividing this by individual cow weights, a weaning percentage was calculated for each cow and outlined in Table 2. Although it is a fairly crude measurement and spread over a small number of animals this year, in the future I see it as a tool for selecting those cows most suitable for culling.

Feeding dry spring-calving cows

It is not practical to have two pits open at once, so all cattle here are presently being fed first-cut silage. It is good-quality feed and if offered to my dry cows on an ad-lib basis, it will increase body condition.

From body condition scoring (BCS), most cows are already above the ideal BCS of 2.75 to 3.0 for calving next spring.

Consequently, all bar two thinner cows are being restricted to approximately 60% of their potential intake. They will be kept at this level until early January, at which point they will be gradually increased to ad-lib by calving. With calving due to commence from mid-January, pre-calving minerals will be introduced from mid-November onwards.

I took the risk of ploughing 24 acres for reseeding. Opportunities for getting ground cultivated and seeded since then have been limited. But I managed to get nine acres sown out on 2 September, with the remaining 15 acres sown on 22 September. Despite the poor weather, both fields have grass established, with the exception of a few small areas which flooded.

Silage supplies

Having completed a fodder budget, I have a good surplus of silage available. While it is a good scenario this year, in the future, if margins are to improve, I would need to be pushing things a little harder as regards stock numbers to convert silage into kilogrammes of beef.