The Farming Express The Farming Express Jan iss3 | Page 18

Farming Express. Page 9

What’s On 2015

INTRODUCE LOW COST CEREALS TO CUT RATION COSTS

There may be little festive cheer
around for dairy farmers operating in
a falling milk price environment, but
many producers could cut feed costs
by between 15p and 40p per cow
per day by tweaking current winter

milk production, but do come with a
cautionary flag attached. If a diet is
unbalanced, feeding high levels can
predispose cows to acidosis, which is
obviously highly counter-productive.”
Mr Graham says the answer lies

animal
performance and
h ealth.
“We can ensure
excess acids in the
diet are quickly

rations.
“An average 100-cow herd could
quite easily make an extra £1,200
a month by replacing 3-5kg of
proprietary blend with straight cereals
at the moment. That’s well worth
chasing,” says nutritionist Malcolm
Graham from FiveF Alka Limited.

in better dietary balance and
taking advantage of alkalising feed
ingredients to allow more cereals to
be fed. “The alkaline systems we have
developed over many years allow
milk producers to now feed up to 8kg
of wheat to high performance dairy
cows, leaving plenty of scope for

turned into
ammonium salts,
which are then
metabolised as an
highly effective
rumen degradable
energy and
protein source.

Mr Graham says that some of the
factors driving down milk returns
have also put downward pressure on
cereal prices – so much so that dairy
farmers have a great opportunity to
capitalise.
“Cereals are a very high quality, high
energy feed and full of starch to aid

typical farms to use more cereals. It’s
achieved simply by replacing some
dietary protein with an ammoniareleasing protein source that reduces
the base acid load of the diet.”
FiveF Alka says its alkalising
approach also kickstarts a virtuous
chain of events that will improve

This improves
rumen function,
as well as helping
to reduce the
requirement for
high protein feed
ingredients like
soya and rape