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Nationally we have experienced a very dry spring and start to summer, which has resulted in poor grass growth and concerns regarding conserved forage. In any livestock enterprise, success hinges on the quality and availability of feed. Typically, feed is the largest input cost on farm and therefore plays a pivotal role in farm profitability and animal performance.
Analysing your forage is crucial, not just to appreciate its nutritional quality but also understanding the quantity you have.
One of the most critical components of any ration is the dry matter (DM) content of your forage. Dry matter changes between the type of forage you have, but also across the season.
It is common to see the following DM ranges in each conserved forage:
Maize silage: 28-35% DM
Grass silage: 22 – 40% DM
Fermented whole crop silage: 30 – 45% DM
Hay: 85 – 90% DM
Understanding the DM of conserved forage allows you to:
Although forage DM can be predicted through visual analysis, incorrect predictions can lead to under or over estimating forage supplies.
As an example, a dry sucker cow (650kg) will typically eat 9.75kg dry matter of silage daily. If the silage is wet (20% DM) this will equate to 48.75kg of fresh weight silage, however if she was fed a dry silage (35% DM) she will only require 28kg, a difference of nearly 21kg.
A further example includes baled silage. 500 bales (circa 300t) that have a dry matter of 35% would provide 105t of dry matter silage, however if bales were wetter, at 23% DM, this would only provide 81t DM of silage. This difference of 24t of dry matter is roughly a months’ worth of silage for 100 dry sucklers on a silage and straw ration!
Although the two examples above show drastic variations in silage DM, even small fluctuations of 3-5% can significantly affect ration accuracy, animal performance, and winter reserves of forage.
To ensure the dry matter of the silage is correct, samples of your forage should be taken. Silage samples should be taken ideally every month, particularly on high yielding dairy farms. For bale silage, a sample of at least 5 bales should be taken from each batch.
Understanding the quality and quantity of your forage will help you budget your forage and plan, improving the resilience of your farm. Should you wish to speak to our team regarding forage sampling and quality, and livestock diets, and other means of improving farm resilience in challenging times, please do get in touch.
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