Here at Crecora Mills we value our customers and see it as our job to help and inform them as best we can. With this in mind we ran another of our Dairy seminars in Adare recently.

Des Cronin, who is a well known and respected head nutritionist at Inform Nutrition in Co Cork was the guest speaker. He has a lot of advice from his 25 years experience in productive ruminant animal nutrition both in Ireland and worldwide.

We discussed the changing markets and the abolition of Dairy Milk Quotas in 2015. The general feeling among the attendees was that most farmers were well over quota till April and were worried about penalties and a low milk price and consequently were considering restricting feed intake.

Des Cronin made a very valid point that “the only thing worse than low milk price was low milk volume”. And that if we did not look after the feeding regime of our dairy cows in the months before and after calving that we will miss out on a serious volume of high solid milk in the later half of the year. He quoted numerous research both here in Ireland, in the Uk, France and the U.S. that shows that a cow being fed to her intake potential in the 8 weeks after calving will outperform a cow that is restrained by 10 to 20% over the full lactation. Coupled with the fact that she will go in calf easier, use less fodder and be capable of more flexibility when she may or may not get out on grass. All this for the cost of one AI straw or the difference between 4 kilos of feed a day to 6 kilos.

There are multiple options available for farmers to supplement minerals especially at the breeding season. The most cost effective and reliable method is to incorporate a fertility mineral booster pack into the feed. Here at Crecora Mills we have been doing this for many years now with great results. All it requires is to ask for the fertility mineral pack to be included into your feed at your feeding rate and allow for a day or so notice to manufacture your specific feed to your rate.

He also made the point that we are among the only nations in the world that do not believe in feeding minerals to our cattle throughout the year. He gave the example of a household cat or dog who in most houses get a balanced feed with minerals and vitamins all year long but the cows who we depend on for our living are just fed minerals in the run up to calving and for a few weeks after calving through the feed. We need to balance the fodder that our cows get to boost productivity and reduce health issues. How farmers chose to do that is entirely up to them, through mineral buckets, mineral powder, through feed or through boluses. Each farmer will have their own ideas on what works with their farm management.

He highlighted that in most of the blood tests that he is asked about by vets from around Ireland the most common mineral deficiency is not a Copper problem, its Magnesium deficiency. We need to keep an adequate level of Magnesium in our diets. Magnesium is not just about preventing metabolic problems such as Grass Tetany, it is used in pretty much every biochemical reaction in the cow and so is vital for a productive healthy animal.

Inform Crecora Mills of your feeding rate when ordering your Dairy nuts and they can increase the Magnesium levels to suit you.

Grass availability is also becoming a huge restriction on cow performance. In most farms that are split into 12 hour grazing blocks it is not uncommon to go to the block 2 hours into the 12 hour allocation to find it grazed out. In this scenario the cows are going hungry till they are back into the milking parlour. The proof of it is to give them an extra allocation of grass and see how well it is grazed out. In 99% of cases a 24 hour allocation will be grazed out in 12 to 16 hours. The consequences of restricting grass intake are low milk solids, restricted production and poor thrive.

Des Cronin maintains there are only 2 skills a farmer needs.

1. To Measure grass
2. To count money.

It requires a lot of effort to make sure that grass intake is not restricted and if you find you do not have enough grass then you have to have a plan B to fill the diet. Preferably if you are watching and judging correctly then you will be able to supplement small amounts of feed during the rotation to ensure you don’t run out of grass. What happens in most farms is that come May there is no grass left and suddenly much larger volumes of feed are fed to compensate. A little and often approach is far more cost effective.

Silage Quality is also a big issue this year with a lot of very dry silages suffering from Secondary fermentation. This occurs when air permeates the face of the pit after taking out a grab and a serious loss of energy results. Silage that went into the pit at 66 or 68 DMD may only feed out at 64 DMD due to secondary fermentation. Beware! You can tell if it is a problem if you remove 6 inches of silage from the face of the pit and can feel heat in the pit. This is the silage undergoing secondary fermentation and losing energy in the form of heat.

Best practice to minimise losses from secondary fermentation are to use a good sharp shear grab so as not to disturb the pit face, feed once a day not every 2 days and be prepared to get rid of silage that they are refusing to eat. Obviously if you have moulds on your silage be sure to remove them before feeding. Mouldy silage will depress the cows immunity and lower feed intake and production. Be very careful if you are handling moulds in silage as it affects humans greatly also. wear a mask and minimise contact with it if at all possible.

If Animals are reluctant to eat the silage then you are best off to clear it out of the feed passage. Cattle are brilliant at picking out the best in their fodder and quite often whatever they leave behind will be of little or no nutritional value to them. If you tested fodder that they are reluctant to eat quite often you will find it would be around 40 DMD. If you force them to eat it you will hammer your potential production, weight gain, animal health etc. There is a very good reason why they don’t want to eat it!

Acidosis was mentioned in the seminar also. Des Cronin made the point that we should be trying to gradually bring in grass into the diet after calving if possible. The turbo charged leafy spring grass can cause a lot of digestive upsets in cows and lead to Ruminal Acidosis.

Crecora Mills have a lot of experience in helping to prevent Acidosis. We have a rumen buffer pack that we can include in our feeds to help stabilise the rumen of the cow. Crecora Mills also manage the fibre levels of the feed to try to combat problems before they arrive in Springtime by increasing the fibre levels using quality feed ingredients such as Beetpulp and Soya hulls.

Paul O’Connell from Crecora Mills made a few points at the end of the seminar about some other Agri-business advice.

• Tell Crecora Mills your feeding rate so we can best advise you on your nutritional needs.
• When you need our fertility mineral pack in your feed just ask and we can incorporate it for you.
• To help prevent Hypocalcaemia in cows at calving try to feed them silage from paddocks that did not get slurry that year. When you cut those paddocks and bale them, mark them or put them aside to feed to cows before calving. These bales should have far less Potash in the silage and it will help prevent Hypocalcaemia.
• Our best agri-business and economic advice is to get more from your cows at a stocking rate that is manageable on your farm before you increase numbers. Its just good business sense. Minimise your risk of fodder shortages and less labour.
• Two many cows for a farmer leads to highly stressed farmers who are under too much pressure to manage grass properly. This results in bad decisions being made and losing money. We have seen a few cases where 20 less cows results in a happier farmer who is better able to manage his grass and makes more money.

Paul made the point that at the end of the day the motivation for Crecora Mills is not to make our customers buy more feed for the sake of it. Rather it is to understand and value what they feed their animals in order to get the maximum return from the feed. To put it crudely if our farmers are not making money then Crecora Mills are not making money so it is in our interests to help our customers maximise their profits.

Keep an eye on the website for more news and updates on upcoming events and advice.

Any business enquiries please contact 061 355186

Here at Crecora Mills we pride ourselves on solving and preventing problems for our customers before they happen.

With this in mind we have formulated our new Smartcalver feed. Available in both a ration and nut form we believe it can help to provide the nutrition necessary for our valuable cows to calve down a healthy calf and get back into healthy and profitable production as fast as possible thereby saving you money and time.

Smartcalver is an 18% protein energy dense feed to take account of a cows reduced feed intake in the last months of gestation. As her calf grows in her womb over these last few months her rumen shrinks and she cannot eat a large volume of feed.

If she cannot take in adequate energy in this period she can often lack the energy to go through the calving process safely. A weak cow at calving will have difficulty standing, lack energy to push, and can leave herself open to infection through a lower immune system.

This reduced intake also means she may not take in the required nutrients, vitamins and trace elements to look after her health and that of her calf.

Many people think that feeding a cow in late gestation will lead to big calves. However the accepted scientific logic has proven that genetics determines the size of the calf, and feeding the cow will have little or no effect on calf size. What it will affect is the ability of a cow to have the energy to go through a difficult calving if you have bred to a difficult bull. If she is hungry and weak and been starved for the weeks coming up to calving you will be putting her under serious pressure to calf safely.

Smartcalver is 18% protein using high quality sources of protein. Mainly Hi Pro Soya and smaller amounts of Distillers and Rapeseed.

Smartcalver feed is very energy dense, so she does not have to eat much of it (as little as 2kgs)

Smartcalver contains all the necessary pre-calver minerals and vitamins to help the cow in late gestation and in the calving process.

Smartcalver is a convenient way to ensure that each cow is getting the required amount of nutrients rather than molasses licks where one cow may consume far more than the rest.

Smartcalver is made of all quality ingredients such as Barley, Maize, Hi Pro Soya, Oats, and Soya Hulls.

Smartcalver is available in both nut and ration form

Call us today on 061 355186 or your local sales representative for more information.

Myth 3 is “The only way to grow is through expansion”

The last in this series of articles is about the hot topic of Dairy Expansion and Herd numbers.

WARNING! I’m going to ask some hard questions about our approach to farming so this is not for the faint hearted!

Firstly I’d like to ask the question: Are we involved in Farming or Agribusiness?

The two in my view are not necessarily the same. We all want to work the land in a safe and correct manner but we also need to recognise that we need to make a profit. I know some great farmers who struggle to make money. They can grow crops on great land and manage animals better than most but they struggle to make a profit. On the other hand I know some farmers who feel they don’t manage their farm as well but still make a healthy profit even though they are on mediocre land.

My challenge to you is to recognise that expansion and all that it entails needs an agribusiness approach, not just a farming approach.

In our experience in Agribusiness over the last 30 years we have seen the ups and downs of the quota system and the knock on effect in our dairy customers.

There is a hugely worrying trend over the last few years for farmers to keep more and more animals in the herd. As we have seen over the last few years this has led to huge pressure on fodder reserves, farmers labour time and stress. Too many of my customers are under so much pressure running around after an extra 30 cows when they are set up for 60 cows for example. I have a customer who despite the best advice from his father has gone from 90 to 160 cows and is under serious pressure for fodder over the last few years. If he had 70 less cows and used half his inputs he would be a very wealthy farmer. As it is he is under serious financial pressure. The myth that you need to expand herd numbers to increase milk yield needs to be put to bed.

Our advice over the last few years has been to get more from your existing animals. Why not push your herd when quotas are abolished instead of spending hundreds of thousands on new sheds, parlours and land. Generally a cow in Munster doing 25 litres a day is considered a good cow. Up in the North of Ireland just 200 miles away that same cow is capable of 50 litres on different feeding regime! Imagine your 100 cow herd milking as much or more than your neighbours 200 cow herd, except that you don’t have his bills for new parlours, sheds and don’t have to rent expensive land for silage! Is that not good business?

We are not saying don’t expand your numbers at all but the sensible business approach is to push your animals first and then see how much more your farming situation can handle.

Lets look at the factors which are influencing your expansion and discuss them briefly

1. World Milk prices. What happens if world milk prices fall? The first thing to watch is not the price, its your margin. If inputs are cheap then you can still make a good margin at a lower milk price. The second important thing to recognise is that world milk prices go in cycles. They go up and down every few years. We must make our money when the price is high and put some away for when prices are not so good. That’s just good business.

2. Herd Numbers. Most people are becoming increasingly worried about herd numbers growing year on year. I know of farmers who are planning on doubling their herd size post quota. On paper this may seem like a good idea but I question the economics of making more money in this manner. More numbers means longer hours, more stress, huge pressure on fodder supply, more vet bills, more housing, more fertiliser, more feed, more equipment.

3. Rented land. With land prices on the increase and land in short supply you would have to question the business sense in renting land at 200 to 300 euros per acre. As we have said above if its fodder you are short of why not go back to basics and look at buying in more fodder or using what you have more effectively. We have long campaigned for the use of straw in all ruminant diets and it can be a great source of long fibre for animals to prevent acidosis. Personally I’d prefer to see a farmer putting up a cheap haybarn for straw or some other fodder rather than renting expensive land. The logic of spending half a million on 50 acres and being under pressure to pay for it for 30 years does not stack up from a business point of view. There are easier ways to make money in business.

4. Fodder. With added expansion comes added pressure to feed big numbers of animals. As we have seen over the last few years Fodder quality and quantity is becoming a serious concern. Our winters are getting wetter, our summers are getting drier and this is putting huge pressure on grass and fodder levels in the country. We all have short memories when it comes to Fodder shortages. You must allow for disastrous years for fodder such as we have had 2 out of the last 5 years. Consider buying in fodder from other sources and reducing your dependence on it by increasing your concentrate feeding rate. The one positive from the fodder shortage was farmers finally realised the value of feeding heavily. Cows calved well, recovered well, milked very well, kept body condition well and were in good health despite the fodder shortages. Every 1 kilo of concentrate replaces 5 kilos of silage.

5. Workrate and labour. If you don’t value your time, no one else will. The vast majority of farmers are working long hours for small pay. If we add in an extra 20 or 30 cows into the mix and this becomes far more challenging. Farming has to reflect your lifestyle and no man can keep going forever. You have to value your time and see if the extra hours of work from keeping 30 more cows or renting 30 extra acres is going to pay you. The thing that keeps me going when helping people is improving our customers lives by making their jobs  a little easier. Sometimes you need a fresh viewpoint to look at what you are doing to see if there is a slightly better way of doing things. Small changes to shave 5 minutes per milking is an extra 70 minutes a week to do something else productive.

The take home messages that I’d like you to think about are:

• Get more from your existing Dairy herd before keeping more animals. A 25 litre cow can become a 50 litre cow on a different feeding regime.

• Watch your margin and cashflow. Be aware prices will rise and fall, margin is crucial.

• Spend some time regularly planning where you want your business to go and how you can improve small things regularly. 1% improvement every week is a 50% improvement every year!

• Make sure your decisions are based on a fair value of your own time. You need to have the business running well and efficiently for those coming after you.

In this series of articles I’d like to go into detail about the three greatest myths in animal nutrition that I deal with on a daily basis. Using my own experience as part of the Crecora Mills Animal Nutrition team and from other nutritionists based both in this country and abroad here is a broad outline of how we can save you money and increase your animals performance.

Our aim is to explain the Myths, and show you how to prevent them from happening and how to fix them if they do happen.

Myth number 2: Acidosis…Heartburn for cows!

Why do I need to know about Acidosis?

Acidosis will cause your animals to

• Can cause serious health problems and can be fatal.
• Will cause a big drop in performance in terms of Milk and beef production.
• Causes Lameness and sore feet
• Causes Animal to become loose and cannot process any feed correctly
• Will cost you a lot of time and money to remedy

To explain what it is and how we can prevent it lets start at the beginning. Our ruminant animals are a wonderful high performing animal that can take in large amounts of forage and process this into useable energy for meat or milk production. They can do this by having 4 separate stomachs to break down hard to digest fibrous material such as grass into amino acids that the animal can utilise. Single stomach animals (monogastrics) such as humans and pigs are not capable of this efficiency from this kind of diet. We need our food very easy to digest so it must be ground or processed first.

Our Beef and Dairy cattle have four distinct stomachs

1. The Rumen
2. The Reticulum
3. The Omasum
4. The Abomasum

Of the four stomachs in the ruminant animal then one we are mostly concerned with is the Rumen. This is a very large stomach up to 50 gallons in capacity that acts as a mixing and fermenting vat for the animal to begin the process of breaking down fibrous materials such as grass and silage. Its functions are Storage, soaking physical mixing of roughages and to provide a stable environment for the good bacteria and protozoa. A modern cow is actually pretty much a walking stomach. The Rumen unlike our human acidic stomachs is designed to operate best at a more neutral PH level. It is not an acidic environment. The billions of microscopic bugs that live in the rumen that help in the breakdown of fodder will not survive in an acidic environment.

Knowing the importance of the rumen and the huge role it plays in animal performance we understand that keeping this Rumen working at an optimum level is vital for the production and good health of the animal we are feeding.

So what about this acidosis that I keep hearing about?

What we as farmers call acidosis is when the ph level of the rumen falls to a more acidic level and our animals health and digestion is affected negatively as a result. Loss of performance, bad health, lameness and poor profitability are caused by Acidosis.

Common causes of Acidosis in Ireland.

1. Second rotation grass.  This is an annual occurrence that affects every farmer to a greater or lesser extent. Cows in late spring are coming from eating more stemmy grass that has been growing since the previous autumn (6 months) and are released into a field with leafy lush grass that they previously grazed a few weeks previously. We are asking the animal to change from eating this fibrous, hard to digest stemmy grass to this lovely lush grass which is rapidly fermentable in the rumen. The grass goes through the animal too fast as it has less fibrous material in it and the PH in the rumen drops killing a lot of the billions of good bugs in the rumen.
2. Cereal content in the diet. Some cereals are very fast to breakdown in the Rumen being rapidly fermentable such as wheat. If you are feeding too much of these in the diet too fast then Acidosis is inevitable.
3. Feeding too much, too fast. Generally I see this when our farmers get a bad spell of weather and bring in animals and increases feeding overnight. Changing the level of feed very fast can cause Acidosis but thankfully this is less of a problem when farmers are using our feed as I will explain below.
4. Feed management. You will get away with feeding large amounts of cereals ad lib for a certain length of time if you have good access to lots of clean water, lots of space in the holding facilities, a consistent feed in front of the animals at all times and you don’t push it for longer that 70 to 100 days. After this performance will drop off and acidosis is inevitable.
5. Big Changes in diet. On farms where diets are changed very regularly this can lead to problems with Acidosis. The bugs in the Rumen develop to digest one diet when the diet is changed again and a different set of bugs is needed to digest the new diet.
6. Lack of clean Water. Ruminant animals can produce up to 100 litres of saliva a day. This acts as a buffer agent in the rumen to aid digestion and prevent acidosis. To do this they need a lot of clean water to produce this saliva.

Crecora Mills Tips on how to prevent Acidosis.

1. When going into second rotation grass offer a bale of straw or hay to the animals also to boost their fibre intake on lush fresh grass. Not all the animals will need it but those with acidosis will naturally eat it those that are ok will not bother with it. Commonly done on the way out of or into the parlour in dairy herds. Very easy to do, costs very little but hugely effective.
2. Avoid high cereals such as wheat in the diet. We use mostly Maize and barley in our feeds as these are slower to break down in the rumen, especially maize.
3. Feed a buffering agent as part of the diet. Most of our premium feeds such as Dairy Max, Dairy MaxGrass, Beef Elite, Hi Maize Beef finisher and CalfMax etc contain this as standard.
4. Feed an active yeast in the diet to reduce air in the rumen thereby boosting fermentation efficiency. We include this as standard again in our Dairy Max and Beef finishing and calf feeds.
5. Ensure Animals have access to lots of clean water. The rule of thumb is if you would not drink it, then it’s not good enough for your animals.
6. try to introduce changes to the diets as gradually as possible and if increasing feed levels do it on a phased basis over a few weeks if possible.
7. Always consider having access to a good fibre source for all animals such as hay or straw. Those that need it will eat it.

Thankfully Acidosis is not nearly as much of a problem as it could be with our customers due to the effectiveness of our Rumen Buffer pack which contains an active yeast. Even in times of fodder shortages our customers were able to feed very high levels of our Dairy and Beef feeds to their animals with no real problems.  If you are running into trouble with acidosis give us a call and we will help you as best we can with no obligation.

We are here to Help

Paul O’Connell

Nutritionist

Crecora Mills

In this series of articles I’d like to go into detail about the three greatest myths in animal nutrition that I deal with on a daily basis. Using my own experience as part of the Crecora Mills Animal Nutrition team and from other nutritionists based both in this country and abroad here is a broad outline of how we can save you money and increase your animals performance.

Myth number 1: Protein

What do you know about animal feed protein?

Protein in feed has historically been the most expensive element of a formulation. Animal feed Protein comes from a lot of different sources around the world. Soya bean meal from North and South America, Distillers grains and Rapeseed meal from the E.U and worldwide are the main protein sources that we use in our feeds.  These are vulnerable to huge market fluctuations due to increased speculation from investment funds and global shortages due to weather events and fluctuating global stock levels.

Not all protein sources are as good as others. We use a lot of HiPro Soya meal in our feed along with Distillers grains and Rapeseed extract. Beware of buying products with low quality protein sources such as Sunflower extract.

I used to hear this a lot when I was starting out as a nutritionist. “My cows/Beef cattle are not performing….. I need to increase the protein level of the diet” Before I recommend an expensive high protein product or diet to a customer I always try to look at the bigger picture to see if it is really necessary.

In a lot of cases the reason for cow performance may not be linked to protein level in the diet.

1. Grass or fodder quality can change on a daily basis. I have seen superb 80+ DMD silage in bales and a pit where cows dropped performance for a few weeks after changing from bales to the pit. After analysing the details we found that the silage bales while being high 80+DMD silage had a higher level of fibre than the same pit silage. It was also not chopped as fine so when the animals ate the baled silage it took their Rumen longer to break it down. When they went to the pit silage their Rumen was not quite as accustomed to this short chopped lower fibre silage and they were encountering a significant drop in the ph of their Rumen causing a slight case of Acidosis or what we call SARA. Sub Acute Ruminal Acidosis. This slight drop corrected itself after 3 weeks and normal service resumed. Our advice on changing over from one feed type to another is to do it gradually over a two to three-week time period and if on high levels of concentrate feeding consider using one of our many products with our very effective Rumen Buffer pack included. This Rumen Buffer pack contains a buffering agent and an active yeast to help aid efficient Rumen digestion.
2. Life cycle of the animal. Increased protein is most effective in younger stock such as calves and yearlings which is why our CalfMax nuts, our Calf rations and StockGro feeds are high in high quality protein. The protein provides the building blocks to grow a larger frame to carry more weight and mature faster. Once an animal starts to mature the high levels of protein are not nearly as effective and eventually will hold the animal back as they will have to process excess protein into urea and release it from their body as urine. Literally peeing away the farm profits.
3. The animals stage of production has a huge influence on their protein requirement. When high performing animals are on a mainly silage diet they have a larger requirement for protein as the silage will not provide enough for their diet. When the same animals are out on grass, especially high protein second rotation grass then they do not require high levels of protein. Rather it causes them to convert excess protein into urea and expel it as urine. With so many customers so happy using our very effective Dairy Max18% nuts during the winter we have quite a job to change to the sister formulation Dairy MaxGrass fertility nut when on high protein grass. Dairy MaxGrass nut is formulated with 30% maize, beetpulp soya hulls barley and soya to provide a high fibre very high feeding value to cows on grass and contains a rumen buffer and active yeast along with a fertility mineral pack.
4. “Protein helps fertility” It can help things along undoubtedly but we have had better fertility results from feeding balanced energy saturated products such as Dairy Max18 and Dairy MaxGrass fertility nuts. We look at the energy intake of the animal rather than the crude protein intake. The more energy the animal has the better the performance, the lower the body weight loss, the better quality milk produced and the more energy the cow has left over to start the breeding cycle. If we restrict a cows feeding especially before and after calving she will prioritize firstly making quality of milk for her calf, secondly making volumes of milk for the calf, thirdly keeping herself alive and not losing too much body condition and only then when we have fed these first 3 functions will she use what energy is left to start the breeding cycle.

I’d like to have shown in this brief article about how it is important to match the Animals requirements to what level we are feeding them in order to make the best, most efficient and – use of our feed materials.

Feel free to sign up to our newsletter for the next 2 articles on the 3 greatest myths in Animal Nutrition in Ireland!

For any other enquiries or to speak to one of our nutrition advice team please contact us on 061 355186

Paul O’Connell

Head nutritionist

Crecora Mills

This product has been specially formulated using our experience from last years very successful Dairy Maize to
Graze nut.

The first five ingredients are 30% Maize, Beetpulp, Soya Hulls
Barley and HiPro Soya. It also contains a Rumen Buffer agent, Active yeast and
our special and very successful fertility mineral pack.

This feed is specifically targeted for cows making the transition from silage to grass and
into the grazing season. The Buffering agent and the yeast will help the cow’s
rumen to stabilize during a very difficult time while she changes from 6 months
silage, to grass. And when we get into very leafy second rotation grass this
feed will help to stabilize her rumen to help offset acidosis from this very
leafy turbocharged grass.

We are also including a fertility mineral pack in this feed to help get the breeding
process started. Our customers experience with this has been very positive from
the last few years with more compact calving, higher conception rates and less
empty cows.

Call us on 061 355186 or your local sales representative for prices and more details.