Macfarlane Rural Business farm advisor, Jeremy Savage, said the cost of an additional delivery line for palm kernel is about $30,000, and a further $10,000 for a molasses delivery system.
“Retrofitting to deliver palm kernel with grain is proving very successful in Canterbury, and mixing grain with palm kernel is enabling higher intake of feed, and reducing the acidosis risk of feeding grain alone.”
Typically, 50:50 mixes are proving to work well and having the palm kernel option provides another choice when pricing feed input options.
As Canterbury moved closer to defined nutrient loss levels, Savage believed targeted in-dairy delivery systems would be a way to deliver greater productivity and profitability without increasing leaching in the nitrogen budget, when lowering stocking rate and increasing per cow production.
“We have had a number of clients who have reduced their stocking rate and maintained their per hectare productivity with good feeding systems using high quality supplements complimented with excellent pasture management.”
He had some clients achieving 500kg of milksolids/cow/year with “reasonable” levels of supplement totalling about 800kg drymatter (DM)/cow/ year.
One problem sometimes experienced with palm kernel delivery was its tendency to “bridge” in the silo, and not come through the auger. Installing an air compressor jet in the silo cone to give a timed blast of air would help dispel this problem.
Compared with in-paddock feeding, and allowing for 10% wastage in that situation, in-dairy feeding systems generally offered a five to seven year payback period.
“Then there are also the tractor hours, fuel and wear on races you are saving by feeding in the dairy, along with the benefit of combining feeds like palm kernel and grain.”
The outlay of $110,000 to install a system made them expensive to buy, but they were cheap to run in contrast with in-paddock feeding.
Dairy nutritionist and dairy farmer Andrew Trounce of Timaru urged farmers to ask themselves some questions before leaping into a feed system.
“The first should be ‘what do I want to achieve with this system?’” he said.
“This may be as simple as providing just one feed type to fill a seasonal gap. Installing multiple feed lines does increase options, but will introduce some complexity to the task of deciding what cows get fed what feed.”
Herd software systems would typically enable “feed groups” to be identified, and feed mixes altered according to the group’s requirements.
Trounce ran a system where every cow once calved went into a standard post-calving group, was fed to her peak production point and then depending on her peak was placed in one of several groups with feed based on her 10-day average milk yield .
Typical group definition may be “fat” cows, “skinnies”, high producing and low producing, all defined by eye or herd test results and entered into the software.
For Canterbury dairy farmers another consideration was whether to invest in a crushing plant onfarm, rather than paying about $25 a tonne for cracked grain. With a payback period of only a few months, a crusher provided the opportunity to form a one-on-one relationship with a grain grower, and have security of supply at a negotiated price heading into the season.
Trounce believed a desire to see high genetic cows perform better was resulting in some traction in dairy nutrition, and as aided by a recognition that nitrogen controls demanded feed with a lower nitrogen content, such as grains.
