Theme 19: Use of Supplements
Description
This review will focus on the use of conserved forages in pastoral dairy farm systems; especially on their conservation as an aid to good grazing management during periods of rapid pasture growth, and on their consumption as an aid to good feeding management and grazing management during periods of slow pasture growth. Conservation of pasture, in order to move it from one time to another later time, always involves “costs”, either financial expenditure or physical losses (of dry matter/quality) or both, which must be evaluated in the whole system.
Most of the data is drawn from New Zealand and Australia, with some from England and Ireland. The topic has been reviewed before (e.g. Rogers, 1984 and 1985; Leaver, 1985; Phillips, 1988; Mayne, 1991; Stockdale et al., 1997), but the present review will put greater emphasis on the effects on pasture management and on the whole pastoral system, and on recent results, because the cows’ ability to respond to supplementary feeds is now larger than it used to be, as a result of steady genetic improvement in milk producing capacities. In recent years there has been marked increase in supplement use on pasture based dairy farming systems in New Zealand often driven by perceived limitations to production increases in existing systems rather than profit (Attrill and Miller 1996). This review attempts to identify, and discuss, the factors involved in supplementary feeding (i.e. the responses of cows and farming systems to extra feed) to enable sustainable increases in productivity and profitability on pastoral based systems.
Included in
Feeding of Conserved Forage - Implications to Grassland Management and Production
This review will focus on the use of conserved forages in pastoral dairy farm systems; especially on their conservation as an aid to good grazing management during periods of rapid pasture growth, and on their consumption as an aid to good feeding management and grazing management during periods of slow pasture growth. Conservation of pasture, in order to move it from one time to another later time, always involves “costs”, either financial expenditure or physical losses (of dry matter/quality) or both, which must be evaluated in the whole system.
Most of the data is drawn from New Zealand and Australia, with some from England and Ireland. The topic has been reviewed before (e.g. Rogers, 1984 and 1985; Leaver, 1985; Phillips, 1988; Mayne, 1991; Stockdale et al., 1997), but the present review will put greater emphasis on the effects on pasture management and on the whole pastoral system, and on recent results, because the cows’ ability to respond to supplementary feeds is now larger than it used to be, as a result of steady genetic improvement in milk producing capacities. In recent years there has been marked increase in supplement use on pasture based dairy farming systems in New Zealand often driven by perceived limitations to production increases in existing systems rather than profit (Attrill and Miller 1996). This review attempts to identify, and discuss, the factors involved in supplementary feeding (i.e. the responses of cows and farming systems to extra feed) to enable sustainable increases in productivity and profitability on pastoral based systems.
