The impact of optimal silage quality
Today we will look at the benefits of good silage practices. It’s not easy seeing the value of the effort and quality products that you may put into preserving your silage, feeds or feed raw materials. You don’t have a testing facility at hand where you can compare poorly preserved feeds to well preserved and tasty feed and the difference that makes on animal behavior and performance. You don’t see the decrease in consumption or performance if all animals are served the same feed.
In our many years in the silage business we have seen the difference on many farms, field tests and laboratory trials. We have seen the improvements in consumption and drop in production numbers when silage quality is improved. So let’s for the sake of it go through a theoretical calculation of the benefits of high quality silage vs silage of compromised quality. An average calculation for 100 dairy cows could look something like this:
Profitability calculation 100 dairy cows/month
*Milk production +1 kg/day, +0,2% fat, +0,1% protein
**Decreased DM-losses, decreased feed waste and decreased raw protein losses
A 4% increase in milk might stay unnoticed in all of the other fluctuations a season has to offer. Roughage costs are difficult and bothersome to keep track of. But you see that it does add up!
We hope this demonstration was helpful. Stay tuned for more ‘quantify July’ on the Perstorp Animal Nutrition social media channels and here on w9j.waki-aiai.net!
Please note that the application of the estimated savings represent only a theoretical estimate of the potential savings that would result from improved silage quality. Data has taken a limited number of factors into considerations and is based on findings from research and experiments done in the laboratory and field test. It thus implies no guarantee (neither explicit, expressly or implied) to the savings will actually be achieved in individual cases. Perstorp cannot be held responsible if the benefits of improved silage quality do not translate to the exact same benefits in practical cases.