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This is how you increase the feed efficiency of roughage
Due to the current legislation and regulations, dairy farmers are severely limited in their options. The subject on which you can still develop is feed efficiency. The highest added value is in the number of liters of milk that you produce from your own roughage.
I'll give you some practical tips to increase the feed efficiency of your maize. Watch my advice in the video below or read more below the video.
More than €10.000 less feed costs
The feed efficiency (how many kilos of measuring milk 1 cow can produce from 1 kilo of feed) is one of the most important indicators on the farm. If you manage to improve the feed efficiency by 1 point, this saves €0,1 in feed costs with a production of 1 million kilos of milk. In addition, a better feed efficiency leads to a higher milk production per hectare, without extra manure disposal costs.
Increase feed efficiency of the maize
Feed efficiency is related to, among other things, the yield per hectare, the feed value quality, the digestibility and the palatability of the roughage. Higher feed efficiency therefore starts with a good choice of maize varieties. Choose varieties that:
- Fully mature within the growing season and thus reach their full nutritional value. For most plots these are very early and early maize varieties.
- Delivering the highest kVEM per hectare: the dry matter yield times the VEM per kilo of dry matter, as can be found on the Recommended Variety List.
A high VEM per kilo of dry matter is therefore the key to increasing feed efficiency. In silage maize, the VEM comes from the starch and the residual plant. The amount of VEM from the residual plant depends, among other things, on the cell wall digestibility, which determines how much energy the cow can extract from the cell walls.
Due to a high cell wall digestibility, the rumen bacteria can form extra microbial protein from this rumen energy. In combination with good rumination activity, a high cell wall digestibility ensures better feed efficiency and extra milk flotation.
Major differences between maize varieties
Maize with a high cell wall digestibility can be used better by the cow and is a key to better feed efficiency. Between the varieties, the difference in cell wall digestibility can be up to 12%. In the image above you can see that the top digestibility of 60,3% of these LG 7005, together with a good starch content, ensures a top quality of 1.058 VEM.
My advice
So opt for more digestible LG 31 maize varieties. They excel in VEM per kilo of dry matter, due to a high utilization of starch and the residual plant. This will produce the most milk from every bite of corn! Would you like personal advice on your choice of variety? You can find my contact details here.
