Use of fish heal to reduce compound feed usage in high yielding dairy herds

Abstract

Compound feeds are frequently used at a fixed rate of 0.36kg to 0.40kg/kg milk produced, in addition to forage and other home-grown feeds. Such linear scales take no account of the curvilinear response of milk yield to concentrate feed intake, nor of the substitution effect of concentrate feed upon forage intake. In high-yielding herds, the use of fixed rate scales can result in the provision of concentrate feeds in excess of 10kg/d. An experiment was designed to evaluate whether milk yields could be maintained while reducing concentrate feed intake, and therefore placing greater reliance on forage intake, and including sugar-beet pulp as a source of highly digestible but non-starchy concentrate, and fish meal as a source of high quality undegraded dietary protein