Wynnstay Head of Dairy services, David Howard has over 12 years of experience in the ruminant feed industry following his graduation from Harper Adams University. His specialities lie in key areas such as robotic milking, lameness in dairy cows and transition cow management. As well as being a qualified Cow Signals Master Trainer, David has been a mentor for Farming Connect in the area of robotic milking systems.
Over the past year, Wynnstay’s Dairy Technical Team has collaborated with the University of Nottingham's Centre for Dairy Science Innovation to implement a soya-free diet for the university’s dairy herd. The work conducted at the university’s farm has shown that dairy cows can thrive on this optimised, soya-free diet, not only increasing milk production from forage but also maintaining high milk quality.
The past eighteen months in the dairy sector have been a rollercoaster, featuring unprecedented volatility in milk prices and significant fluctuations in the costs of feed, fuel, and fertiliser.
In an ever-evolving dairy sector, understanding the latest market trends and strategies is paramount.
The relationship between nutrition and calf health influences the longevity and production performance throughout an animals life.
Optimising calf health and nutrition from day one right through to first lactation will help to optimise cow longevity and lifetime milk yields.
In Season 3, Episode 5 of the Wynnstay Agri-Hub Podcast, Millie Hendy our Calf & Youngstock Manager and Charlie Moss from Horizon Vets give an update on some of the latest updates in the industry around calf nutrition and health.
Forage4Profit is a 4-point plan to help livestock farmers maximise the quality of homegrown forage and improve milk or meat from forage.
In this blog we look at the 4 factors to help improve milk from forage this season.
The amount of milk produced from forage averages just 2,900 litres nationally, figures from Kingshay’s cost report from December 2022 show. There is huge scope to improve this and reduce purchased feed costs, with the best farms achieving 5,300 litres of milk from forage.
Every 1,000 litres of milk from forage equates to approximately 460kg of concentrate feed, and so by increasing homegrown forage quality, it's essential to maximise homegrown to make the most efficient use of purchased feed.
Although minerals only account for about 5% of total ruminant nutrition they have a disproportionate role in supporting energy and protein yielding nutrients required to maintain animal health, fertility and production.
Inclusion of maize in the dairy ration has long been favoured by many dairy farmers and with the current costs of other crops and inputs, 2022 represents an even better opportunity for maize.
Jonathan Evans farms at Berry Hill near Newport, Pembrokeshire, alongside his father, uncle, grandparents, and cousins. The family farm 154 hectares where they grow grass, maize, forage rape, forage rye, and hybrid rye. In an attempt to reduce purchased feed costs and cut soya out of diets, in 2022 they undertook a novel trial and intercropped maize and beans to support the 190-cow herd.
In recent times there has been some debate about the ideal chop length for rumen health. In this respect, a useful gauge for chop length is that it should be the width of a cow's mouth! However, only a maximum of 10 per cent should be this long. If there is too much long chopped forage cows will sort the ration and only eat the short chop. In terms of good compaction in a silage clamp, it is absolutely essential to alter the chop length depending on the dry matter content of the forage to be ensiled.
Joe and Ro Collingborn run a very traditional dairy farm which was founded in 1910 and has virtually been a closed herd ever since. Their daughter Ceri and son-in-law Chad are partners in the business. They also run the very successful Brinkworth Dairy, using a proportion of the farm’s milk, which produces artisan cheese, butter, kefir, yoghurt and ice cream, as well as a milk round. The rest is sold to First Milk.
In 1987, the United Nations (UN) defined sustainability as ‘meeting the needs of the present without compromising the needs of future generations’. If we then relay this to food production, it’s producing nutritional food in a system that’s productive, profitable and resilient, while tackling climate change. But what does this actually mean for dairy farmers who are aiming to produce more sustainably?
