33
Table 2: Calculated reduction in N and methane for a 100cow implementing Keenan system (Colman 2011) Start 13.8 18.5 14.3 18.7
Nitrogen (t/year) Total N (g/kg Milk)
Total Methane (t/year) Total Methane (g/kg Milk)
End 13.2
16.7 13.8 17.0
Change - 4%
- 10% - 4% - 9 %
This paper outlined that a decrease of between 0.09 and 0.2kg of methane /100kg of milk is possible for each 0.1 increment in FCE. This would represent a drop of 500kg of methane for a 100 cow herd or a 9% drop in methane production per kg of milk. This is backed up by research carried out by Kebreab in 2003 and by Dairy Australia. It also means there is 600kg less nitrogen produced for same 100 cow herd or a 10% reduction of nitrogen wastage per kg of milk produced.
INCREASE FEED EFFICIENCY? So the next questions is can FE be increased on farm Measure current FE levels Balance the diet for nutrients
Make sure the physical consistency of the diet is correct Continue to measure and manage moving forward
Measurement is key to all of this. In order to improve FE it is vital to know the starting point. This means knowing milk yield and dry matter intake on a regular basis, not what what is down on paper to feed them, but what cows are actually eating. This figure can change on a daily basis. Balancing a diet for energy, protein, fibre etc… is another key area in order for one ingredient to complement the other. It has been found over the years through work on farms that while important, balancing the diet plays an important, but smaller role than believed, because when it comes down to the presentation of this diet to the cow, the balance tends to get lost. When the physical consistency of the diet changes on a regular basis due to loading order changes, different quantities added and changes in mixing time then the cows’ diet differs daily. Because the rumen is a fermentation vat, consistency and repetition is key to achieve maximum use of feed and a stable product being produced.
As stated earlier measurement is key in all of this and because all feed allocated to cows is measured on a daily basis the farmer has real time information now for dry matter intake to add to their milk yield. This allows FE to be calculated and changes to be made to the diet and management accordingly, making reaction to changes or drops quickly.
Using a set of 600 UK farms monitored by Keenan it is possible to what works and what is important when it comes to FE. The graph below compares FE change to dry matter intake and milk yield for a subset of this data.
THE ABOVE GRAPH AND OTHER DATA SUGGEST THE FOLLOWING Dry matter intake (DMI) doesn’t change with increasing FCE and is slightly lower at higher FE or Yield. DMI of the animals doesn’t have a major effect on margin over feed costs. FE tends to drive milk yield and it’s all about making better use of the existing DMI. While overall feed costs is important the costs per tonne we pay for our feeds is not overly important when it comes to margin over feed costs.
CONCLUSION
Feed efficiency has a large role to play in increasing production and reducing loses to the environment. Methods to improve FE on farm needs to be simple to implement, fit in with the existing method on the farm and also need to add to the margin off the farm.
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