For this reason, efficiently feeding the herd is a key factor affecting dairy farm profitability — regardless of the feeding system used.
For this reason, efficiently feeding the herd is a key factor affecting dairy farm profitability — regardless of the feeding system used.
Key points to consider when feeding cows:
The three main aims should then be:
Maximising the production of home-grown feed is essential to improve the resilience and profitability of farming systems.
This applies regardless of the feeding system or level of intensity of the farm.
In the vast majority of cases, home-grown feed is cheaper than imported or bought-in feeds.
It is therefore critical to the sustainability of farm businesses to maximise the production and utilisation of this resource.
Dairy Australia’s Feeding Systems Used by Australian Dairy Farmers fact sheet outlines the five common feeding systems on dairy farms in Australia.
Even though farms tend to become more intensified from system one through to system five, there is a mistaken belief that home-grown feed is less relevant in more intensive systems.
This is incorrect, as most successful examples of system five, where cows are fully housed, still grow a large percentage of their feed as home-grown feed, often as high-quality conserved forage such as maize silage or similar.
No one system is considered better than others and all systems can be profitable.
Selecting the right system for your farm will depend largely on the resources available and your attitude to risk.
Home-grown feed rarely fills all of the feed gaps on Australian dairy farms and so supplements are also used.
These can be very profitable if used correctly and efficiently.
Dairy Australia’s Designing Balanced Milker Diets fact sheet outlines how to maximise milk income minus feed costs in the herd and helps to design high-quality milker diets that are nutritionally balanced.
The principles of marginal versus average milk yield responses are also critical to understand when feeding supplements in order to maximise profit:
The Feeding Supplements fact sheet outlines this in more detail and is an important read for anyone wondering what is the most profitable amount of supplement to use.
Feed conversion efficiency (FCE) is a useful form of measurement to monitor the efficiency of a feeding program.
However, it should not be associated too closely with farm profit, as it does not account for the cost of the feed consumed by the herd.
FCE is helpful to assess the quality of feed consumed by the herd, particularly the forage component of the diet, as improved FCE is closely associated with higher quality diets.
The Feed Conversion Efficiency fact sheet provides more information and some suggested targets for each feeding system.
– Dairy Australia
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