Dairy cow production when supplemented with whole-crop cereal silages in spring and autumn

Abstract

The on-farm milk production, pasture intake and silage intake of cows fed either whole-crop cereal silage or pasture silage as a supplement to pasture was compared in four herds in autumn and two herds in spring during 2002 and 2003. The number of cows per herd ranged from 90 to 270 cows per feeding treatment. Silages were supplemented at rates determined by farmer feed budget. The amount offered ranged from 3 to 6.6 kg DM/cow/ day. Pasture intake estimates ranged from 7.2 to 13.0 kg DM/cow/day. Milksolids (MS) production ranged from 0.93 to 1.61 kg/cow/day in autumn and from 1.33 to 1.98 kg/cow in spring. The feeding of whole-crop cereal silage produced more MS production in two autumn studies compared to feeding pasture silage as a supplement (+0.08 kg/cow/d; P