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One of the most common questions I get asked about winter diets is what meal to feed. My reply is always the same - do you know your silage quality?
The answer is invariably no.
This is like ordering sauce before your steak.
The reality is that silage is the staple diet and for animals like weanlings will constitute 80% of their feed intake. When formulating winter diets, we absolutely must have a handle on our silage quality before even thinking about what ration to feed.
There’s money in quality
At last year’s national ploughing championships, our nutrition demo portrayed differences in meal requirements between average and excellent quality silage.
The scenario of a wintered weanling returning to grass in the spring was assumed.
Target growth rate for such an animal is 0.5-0.7kg daily during the winter period, with the aim being to take advantage of compensatory growth during the subsequent grazing season, when nutrients are cheaper.
To hit the above performance targets with 75% DMD silage, the weanling calf would need to consume four bags of meal in a 150-day winter (0.7kg daily).
If the silage available was 62% DMD, the same calf would need to consume 15 bags of concentrate to achieve the same performance levels (2.5kg daily).
A bag of 16% weanling concentrate costs around €7.50, meaning that we make a saving of €82.50/head with the better quality fodder.
Bear in mind that these performance targets are among the lowest at any point in a beef production system. When feeding finishing cattle, the contrast in meal requirement would be much, much greater.
How can I test?
The technology around forage analysis is developing at a rapid rate, such that portable devices now exist that can return results on farm in seconds.
Your agricultural adviser is your main port of call here, but it is also worth lifting the phone and talking to your feed mill or co-op where you purchase your feed.
Many are now providing a free silage sampling service to their customers.
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