Conserved roughage as the sole basic feed with dairy cattle experiences in practice
Rutzmoser, K.
Wirtschaftseigene Futter 32(2): 164-174
1986
Accession: 005038238
1. In practical dairy farms with feeding of conserved roughage only as basic feed all over the year (1981/82, 14 farms, 1982/83 25 farms) there has been recorded the roughage intake, the milk performance out of roughage, the amount of concentrate fed and the milk yield. The feeding was based on maize-silage, hay and grass silage. 2. The milk performance out of roughage in protein was lower, about 500 kg/cow/year below the level of comparable farms, about 1000 kg below the Bavarian mean. The milk performance out of the roughage in energy (NEL) reached that of the comparable farms and was about 300 kg below the Bavarian [West Germany] mean of 3000 kg/cow/year. 3. The milk yield was on average 200-300 kg/cow/year higher related with a higher concentrate intake. 4. The better yields show that the supervised farms are the better farms. But there were found great differences between the farms. 5. Comparing different regions of Bavaria with a large dataset material, under the worse feeding conditions in northern Bavaria smaller differences between summer and winter feeding than in the better regions in the south of Bavaria could be shown. In the first region therefore usually there are to expect smaller differences between feeding of green grass in summer or only conserved roughage.