Don’t dismiss reliable bought in feeds for seemingly cheaper homegrown forages, says Andrew Barraclough. “While our objective is to run a profitable dairy farming business by optimising the use of grass silage, wholecrop and combined cereals and straw, when it comes to taking on additional rented land to harvest more forage stocks, then the added cost, including travel, as well as inconvenience far outweighs the benefits.
“We found that to be the case in 2023 when silage stocks were running short as a result of field conditions being too wet to take a final cut,” explains Andrew who manages a 315 acre tenanted unit carrying a 225 cow Holstein, Fleckvieh and cross bred herd based near Penrith, Cumbria.
“Faced with various options including renting more land, buying in forage or Alkafibre and we chose the alkalised product as the forage replacer to introduce to the 200 in milk cows’ PMR diet, simply because it gave a consistent reliable, cost effective option with easy on farm utilisation.”
Replacing 9kg of grass silage a day, the alkaline feed material was introduced to the PMR at a rate of 3kg to provide a base diet of M+25kg; it’s overall impact included:
- Improved yield: herd average lactation increased from 8,700 to 9,400 litres and protein from 3.28% to 3.40%.
- Improved rumen stability, the cows appeared more content and cudding time increased.
- Improved consistency within the herd, despite the PMR’s variable silage quality.
Since then Alkafibre has proved to be a constant to the diet; it provides a ready solution without the rumen health issues often experienced with low effective fibre levels. And despite the fact it is not the cheapest feed option, we agreed to leave it in the diet,” he says adding: “We can guarantee the feed coming in on the wagon is consistent, which is something we can’t do with our home grown forages, and that consistency is vital to support rumen health, as well as yield.
“We originally used Alkafibre to reduce the amount of silage we had to buy in, but faced with this year’s straw prices, we are looking to increase the amount of Alkafibre fed, using it as a fibre source.”
Features & Benefits of using AlkaFibre
- Better rumen stability enables more efficient digestion of feed
- Enables increased levels of highly fermentable concentrates in the diet, reducing the risk of Sub Acute Ruminal Acidosis (SARA)
- Increased microbial protein from the rumen reduces need for costly bypass proteins
- Cost effective use of oat feed or soya hulls due to improved nutritional properties
- Can be fed directly, as part of a TMR or with a compound/blend
For further help and advice please call the Alkaline on +44(0)1200 613118