Page 18 - Vol.38-No.1

DAIRY FARMING

SILAGE ADDITIVE HELPS TO

DRIVE FORAGE INTAKES

Margins are tight and forage utilisation is fundamental to the profitability of a dairy business.

Using a multi-cut pact on grass ley performance,” says
approach Marcus.
Marcus runs an autumn block calv- “When we first got back into dairy
ing herd and milks 250 three-way cross farming in 2013, the farm had a lot of
Holstein, Norwegian Red, Fleckvieh permanent pasture. We were strug-
cows in partnership with father and gling to get good volumes of high-qual-
wife. The total size of the family farm ity silage – rarely producing anything
is 520 acres, with 160 acres set aside for with an ME content over 10.4. Since
grazing during the spring and summer. reseeding more regularly, the grass
quality better and we consistently pro-
“We grow grass very well, so the
Every mouthful of high-quality forage aim is to utilise as much grass in our duce silage with ME of 11 and above.
that a cow eats really does count For system as possible,” explains Marcus.
Welsh dairy farmer, Marcus Ferraro the “Cows will be turned out and rotation- Optimising silage
use of a silage additive has become a ally grazed as early as mid-January. performance with silage
‘go-to’ resource in his drive to improve We also operate a multicut approach to
palatability of grass silage and maxim- silaging; kicking off our silaging season additives
ise his cows’ forage intakes. on 20th April. Whilst producing plenty of good
“My herd is producing average yields “We often suffer from a lack of grass quality grass is important, Marcus
of 7,800 litres and we are aiming for growth in the early part of the season knows that this is only half the picture.
4,500 of these litres to come from forage due to hot weather, but the aim is to Turning this grass into high quality,
alone, so getting plenty of high-quality take grass cuts every 35 days. It is real- highly palatable silage is key to fuel-
silage into the cows is a number one ly important that the grass is clamped ling animal performance.
priority,” explains Marcus, who farms within 24 hours of cutting and this will In order to help optimise silage per-
near Cardigan, in West Wales. happen no matter what the conditions.” formance, and following advice from
Michelle, Marcus started using Ecosyl
Every mouthful counts Marucs works with ForFarmers For- back in 2015 and he has been an ad-
I first started using an additive with age Specialist, Michelle Cross, to as- ditive convert ever since.
sess grass ley performance. They are
the mindset that it would just act as a currently reviewing the use of Ryegrass “Our contactors, Cillech Agri, have
bit of an ‘insurance policy’ when mak- Plus Grasses in some of the farm’s leys a lot of acres to harvest and when the
ing grass silage. I now see it as a key to help cope with the stress of dry con- weather is good, I know that they can’t
tool in helping me to optimise silage ditions. be with all the farmers on their list, at
palatability and drive my cow’s feed the same time,” explains Marcus.
intakes. Together with ForFarmers account “When grass needs cutting, I don’t
manager, Elliw Griffiths, Michelle reg-
ularly analyses the farm’s silage. Elliw want to be in the position of having to
then uses this data to tweak the cow’s wait out poor weather and then risk
diet to ensure nutritional consistency having to jostle for my place in the
in the base ration. contractor ‘que’ with other famers,
when the weather improves. Using
Timely fertiliser application also Ecosyl helps give me the confidence
helps to stimulate grass regrowth and to go ahead and let the contactors cut
quality too. During silage harvests our grass, even when the conditions
we have a fertiliser spinner out in the aren’t perfect.
field, chasing our contractor’s forage
harvester out of harvested leys and
spreading fertiliser as soon as possible.
Every extra mouthful of grass silage
that we can get into our cows really
does count when it comes to managing Improving results
the profitability of our herd – and over year on year
the years, Ecosyl has proven to make Analysis of this year’s first cut has
a big difference. ME at 11.2 and Crude Protein of 17.3%.
Ready to improve your silage mak- Marcus is satisfied that silage yields
ing? Find out more about using Ecosyl. and quality seem to be on an upward
And until 31st January 2022, when trajectory. We started using Ecosyl as a bit of an
you buy 10 bottles of Ecosyl or Ecocool, “We now aim to reseed land every ‘insurance policy’ when ensiling grass
we will give you 1 completely FREE! four years, and this has made a big im- but have come to regard the use of a
silage additive as much more than this.

16 Vol. 38 No. 1