Extend you Season Profitably

Farmers are in the business of converting feed into milk, not grazing dry cows for an extended period. So, it makes sense to keep cows in milk for as long as possible into late lactation, rather than go to once a day or dry off – and molasses is a key part of this approach.

Genetic advances and improved knowledge have made it possible to efficiently milk cows for 305 days per lactation. However, New Zealand herds rarely achieve this possibility, with an average lactation length of 230 days. Things that restrict our ability to keep cows in milk include light cow body condition and a feed budget that won’t balance.

Four useful tips

1. Review stocking rates

If cows are too thin, your planning for better cow condition, this season and next, starts today.

Pregnancy test early and, if feed is tight, get rid of empties.

2. Supplement high carbohydrate feeds

Lighter conditioned cows gain weight on high carbohydrate/low protein feeds such as molasses, maize silage and cereal grains.

3. Feed Agri-feeds Rumol 300® and Rumag300®

These are both effective ways to get Rumensin into cows to improve the efficiency of cow condition gain.

4. Balance high fibre feeds

As summer brings about high neutral detergent fibre (NDF) pasture and supplements, the strategic use of molasses (which has no fibre) can help to balance these high fibre feeds – maintaining cow appetite and milk production.

What are the real costs of early dry off?

Table 1 – Daily energy requirements (MJME/cow/day) for a July calving, 500kg liveweight cow in March.

* More maintenance energy is needed for a lactating cow than a dry off cow of the same weight. ^ Weight gain is more efficient for a lactating cow than a dry cow.

The dry cow requires 75MJME every day, just to look after herself and gain some weight – but doesn’t provide any income for the farmer.

The lactating cow, producing 1.2kgMS, needs 150MJME – the difference in energy requirements is therefore 75MJME.

As an example, 6.8kgDM eaten/cow/day at 11MJME/kgDM (at 80% utilisation) yields $7.20 return/cow/day. To simply break even, you could afford to spend 88cents/kgDM to keep your cows in milk at a $6.00 payout. If your DM was costing 40cents fed out, you can make a healthy margin of $3.28/cow/day – making an extra 10 days in milk worth $32.80 per cow!

For more information on molasses and liquid feed systems, talk to your local rural supply store today.

*Contain Rumensin® Technical, Registered pursuant to the ACVM Act 1997, No. A7871.

keeping cows in milk in late lactation is an efficient way to make money