FoRum spring 17

FoRum Feed2Milk WHAT

ISSUE 6 March 2017

A unique dairy cow feeding system focusing on

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Research results show an average increase of 1.8 litres/day (with a range of 0.5-8.0 litres/cow/day) The value of extra milk production on the trial farms was an average of £14/cow/month.

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TDP - True Digestible Protein (digestable protein available for milk production)

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RFC - Rapidly Fermentable Carbohydrate (indicating rumen health risk)

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AI - Acidosis index (predicting the risk of acidosis)

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RI - Rumination index (structural fibre supply)

These figures help provide information about a herd’s potential performance and by giving a much better understand of how each individual farm’s forage will perform, allow ForFarmers nutritionists to put in place the most effective nutritional solutions on farm.

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ELK - More Energy for the M Lactation Cow – indication of milk yield potential

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These figures have L corroborated what has been IS AT found elsewhere in Europe IO as the concept has been working successfully in The Netherlands for four years and has more recently been introduced into Germany.

Feed2Milk expresses these predictions through a new set of figures including:

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The Feed2Milk range of feeds have been developed with this in mind and have been trialled throughout the winter on 50 British farms.

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Instead Feed2Milk predicts how forage and feed are broken down, what nutrients they produce and where these nutrients are utilised (rumen or intestines) and what effect this has on animal performance in terms of milk yield and rumen health.

There was also an improvement in feed efficiency with an average 0.04kg/litre reduction in feed rate.

This led to an average saving of £6/cow/ month in feed costs, or a potential extra 700 litres per cow produced from forage.

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Alongside Silage Manager ForFarmers has launched a new nutrition concept, Feed2Milk, which does more than the standard system of simply taking parameters like the crude protein and metabolisable energy of forage and making up the shortfall.

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The Dutch performance benefit of 279kg extra milk per cow and 0.04 per cent extra protein was an average from some 2,000 herds, with the financial benefit worth an extra £141/cow/year.

Germany’s earlier-stage trials are also revealing encouraging performance benefits for milk, fat and protein, and producers are also noting improvements in dairy cow health.

The concept is now available in the UK and that it has provided encouraging results for our trial farmers over winter. Feed2Milk can help identify nutritional issues in UK silage which would not be uncovered by the classic measures, enabling better feed solutions.

SilageManager+ is a new forage analysis service being offered by ForFarmers as part of its Feed2Milk initiative.

Inconsistencies in forage analysis are a common source of frustration for dairy producers. But accurate forage analysis is essential to ensure that cows are fed a balanced diet that complements supplies of forage, and provided with the right level of concentrate supplementation to achieve the most cost effective and productive results.

Drawing on experience and technology used in The Netherlands, ForFarmers UK has developed its forage analysis techniques to provide consistent, accurate results, and new sets of measures to give producers a better insight into their forage’s potential.

By drying and grinding samples before examining with Near Infared Spectroscopy (NIR), ForFarmers SilageManager analysis results are far more reliable compared to traditional wet sampling.

As well as the standard parameters, SilageManager+ also provides data on milk yield potential, digestible protein and rumen health risk; all of which provide information which can be used to improve the accuracy of ration composition. By tweaking the ratio of feed components, producers can hope to achieve more milk from the same level of feeding, without compromising on cow health or performance.

The new analysis process

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“The key differences between the old method of analysis and the new comes in the way the silage is presented rather than the type of technology,” explains Nick Berni, ForFarmers Ruminant Product Manager.

“Near Infrared Spectroscopy (NIR) is used in both methods, but we have moved away from analysing wet samples of fresh forage to drying and grinding the forage before it goes through the scanning process.

“This overcomes one of the inherent weaknesses of the previous system, where high levels of moisture and particle size could give misleading results. Instead we are analysing dried and ground samples and we’re achieving far greater accuracy and consistency in the results,” he says.

Sample is ground

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Sample put in vial

As with the previous system, SilageManager+ produces results for standard nutrients such as crude protein, metabolisable energy, but new parameters will be added, giving a far more detailed indication of quality than was previously the case.

“The system allows us to predict how each nutrient will behave in the cow and the impact it will have on rumen health, as well as its yield potential and how quickly a wide cross-section of its components will be fermented,” Nick explains.

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Scanned from all sides

Specific parameters include: • Milk yield potential • Digestible protein • Rumen health risk “In other words, we now have a broad range of qualitative as well as quantitative information, and from this, we can put together a far more accurate feeding solution,” says Nick.

South Wales Dairy Conference This year’s South Wales Dairy Conference, organised by ForFarmers, HSBC and CARA, drew some lessons from the past few years in the dairy industry and looked to the challenges ahead.

Developing a successful dairy business Setting clear objectives, being innovative about business structures and keeping his eyes open for opportunity has helped Tom Rawson develop a hugely successful dairy business in Evolution Farming.

After a background growing and developing the family dairy farm, Tom set up Evolution Farming in 2009/10 with a business partner (another partner has since joined them in subsequent years). The business has innovated and grown to include two farm business tenancies, a contract farming agreement and three management agreements on units across the country, as well as consultancy and industry work. The aim is to be milking 3,200 cows this year, with 1,800 owned within the business.

“Setting clear objectives has been crucial in giving guidance,” explained Mr Rawson. “Amongst the objectives of Evolution Farming is the doubling of profitable income every five years, recruiting and retaining the best staff, achieving a cost of production in the top 10% of dairy farms and a return on capital of 25%.”

Tom Rawson

Tom and his partners have been innovative about how they have raised capital, privately and with the bank.

They’ve sought help and advice from consultants and advisors, mentors, friends and family and through constant networking.

“You never know where your next opportunity or excellent staff member will come from. We’re having increasing success with Facebook, Twitter and other social media,” he explained.

The downturn in the sector has refocused Evolution Farming on costcutting and has reinforced the power of the spring calving model in their units.

“It helped us realise that profitability and return on capital is key to any business – don’t spend too much!

“Evolution Farming is now aiming to achieve a cost of production that’s around 20ppl across all units, in a bid to help manage volatility at a farm level. We’ve looked to structure debt with the bank, not with local creditors.”

Mr Rawson continued, “In future we’re aiming to become more professional. We also want to provide career progression within the company to ensure we get the right calibre of applicants for jobs and that we retain them within the business.

“There will be opportunities in the future to increase animal performance, particularly yield form forage, and we want to choose our next opportunities carefully. But, above all, one of our key objectives has always been to make farming an exciting place for the next generation to work in.”

Rocky road ahead The huge task ahead for the British Government as we head towards Brexit was highlighted

by Mark Berrisford Smith, Head of Economics for HSBC’s commercial banking business in the UK. “Don’t think the British Government will have time to do much else but concentrate on Brexit for the next few years,” warned Mr Berrisford Smith.

“Once article 50 is triggered we will leave the EU, whether deals are done or not, but trade deals take on average seven years to complete. It is very likely that there will need to be some kind of interim measure in place to bridge this time gap.

“We are on a cliff edge and once we trigger Article 50 the clock starts ticking for the UK, not the EU. We know we only have two years to get something sorted or we just drop out, the EU has no such deadline to work to. We have a rocky road ahead.

“Post-Brexit Sterling has become a different currency from the one it used to be,” continued Mr Berrisford Smith.

Mark Berrisford Smith

“What really impacts our currency now is politics; a Brexit speech can knock 10 cents off the pound.

“The situation with currency devaluation brings inflation, and we may be looking at rates between 3.5% and 4%. In an economy where we find it hard to bid wages higher, the consumer will feel worse off, affecting their behaviour.”

A changing dairy horizon Ian Potter, industry commentator from Ian Potter Associates, spoke about how the last industry slump and future issues will affect the dairy industry.

Ian Potter

“In the three years between 2012/13 and 2015/16 British milk production jumped 1.9 billion litres (14%) at a time when there was not real increase in demand, leading to the price falls we saw,” said Mr Potter. “Be in no doubt that the recent price recovery was supply driven not demand led, and dairy markets will keep falling if we keep flooding the market. When milk prices get to about 25ppl farmers seem to turn on the tap.

Farming support post Brexit “Farming support is going to be very different post Brexit,” said Mr Berrisford Smith. “Whatever we get won’t look like the CAP. When the British Government make the rules they have to defend them and can’t blame Brussels for a policy unpopular with the British public or media - it may be seen as a perfect opportunity to claw some money back.”

“I hope we see stable milk prices for a few months to help us take stock and work out how to manage this situation, but ultimately the market will take care of the milk price.”

Avoiding the lows means you have to give up the highs when it comes to milk price, he argued. Ian stressed that there are national and international market opportunities available. The UK is the world’s third largest dairy importer by value. It is also the largest net cheese importer in the world and 98% of the UK dairy imports are of EU origin.

Accurate silage analysis helps improve ration...

Concerns about the reliability of silage analysis lead Cornish dairy farmer Alec Bowden to start using the SilageManager+ service from ForFarmers.

Good quality, homegrown forage is the cornerstone of the herd’s ration at Boswidjack Farm, near Falmouth in Cornwall; “Getting silage quality right is key,” explains Alec Bowden who manages the dairy herd as part of WB Bowden and Sons. “If you can produce high quality silage, then you have a strong foundation. If silage quality is poor, then you are always going to be fighting an up-hill struggle to maintain the best cow performance.”

Cows at Boswidjack Farm are currently achieving average milk yields of 8,500 litres, with 4.04% butterfat and 3.34% protein and total milk from forage stands at an average of 3,400 litres.

With grass and maize silage a key component of the herd’s feed, analysing their quality has always been important to ensure that rations are correctly balanced and cows

receive the right nutritional support.

However in the past, analysis results would sometimes throw up inaccuracies.

“With traditional sampling, we would sometimes find that analysis came back saying silage was of good quality, but when we fed it to cows, it didn’t perform well,” Alec explains.

“Yield wouldn’t necessarily drop, but cow condition would, and this was having a negative impact on fertility.”

Alec’s nutritionist, Matt Jenkin from ForFarmers, suggested that he try SilageManager+ which employs dry NIR technology to get more accurate silage results.

“I am always interested in new technology and thought that it was worth giving a go,” continues Alec.

“The results have been really good and the analysis appears to be much more consistent and accurate.

“This has allowed us to improve the accuracy of our ration composition and enable us to change feed levels when there is a dip or peak in quality.

It is proving particularly useful with our maize silage, where there is often a long time between clamping and feeding out; resulting in inevitable variation in the quality of silage that we feed out at the start and towards the end of a clamp.

“I would certainly recommend the service. It gives you peace of mind that you have accurate data, from which you can then formulate the most effective ration for your cows.”

Feed mill aims to increase efficiency and double its capacity feed by reducing the distance it has to travel within the site,” explains Tim. “The machine tower that will house the conveyor is 41 metres in height, making it one of the tallest structures in the Exeter area.”

A substantial redevelopment of the ForFarmers Exeter Mill is currently underway and aims to enhance the site’s energy efficiency levels, as well as overall production capacity.

“As well as replacing older existing facilities and equipment, the redevelopment will incorporate a number of adaptations and new additions to the site, to make it more efficient and improve product quality,” explains Tim Bellamy, ForFarmers Project Coordinator at Exeter Mill.

The new facility will be 15 metres taller than the current mill structure to accommodate the installation of a new, energy efficient vertical conveyor transport system.

“The new conveyor system will use gravity to transport material from where it is pressed, on into storage bins; not only making it a much more energy efficient system to run, but also improving the quality of finished

Planning permission for the site redevelopment was announced in August 2015, with construction starting on the site in June 2016.

Good progress is already being made, with groundwork, demolishment of old buildings, transfer of pack housing facilities and construction of the machine tower, all complete.

“The plan is for the new mill to be fully operational this summer,” says Tim. “It will serve the whole of the South West region in the UK and be able to handle 300,000 tonnes of material, combining compound and blended feeds. This will represent a 150,000 tonne increase from our current output, so we are aiming to double current capacity.”

“The redevelopment includes the incorporation of an existing, off-site blending plant, to help boost our blending capacity at Exeter Mill and help improve the general efficiency of our logistical operations.”

Whilst the mill’s redevelopment represents a considerable financial investment, it demonstrates ForFarmers’ continued commitment to the UK animal feed sector and the company’s drive to improve its compound feed and blending services.

Awards 2017 ForFarmers have launched the 2017 Excellence in Farming Awards. Building on the success of last year, the awards are designed to recognise and reward customers who are excelling in one of three areas: feed efficiency, forage and youngstock.

Regional award winners will be announced at the UK Dairy Day and the South West Dairy Show before the overall winners are announced at a ceremony in London in late November.

A video about the 2016 dairy efficiency winner Charlie Hughes is available to view on the ForFarmers website.

For more information about the awards talk to your local account manager.

Brydekirk 01576300202 | Carmarthen 01267 234901 | Denbigh 0845 0727209 | Exeter 0845 603057 Newcastle 01782 568000 | Radstock 08456 060333 www.forfarmers.co.uk |

@ForFarmersUK