Meeting the rising nutritional requirements of ewes, and maintaining body condition score (BCS) in late pregnancy, is key for productivity with high yields of quality colostrum and milk, healthy vigorous lambs, and strong maternal behaviour.
All these things can be compromised, however, due to sub-optimal nutrition, along with risk of twin lamb disease, milk fever and lambing difficulties.
Conventional concentrate feeding systems on poor or average quality silage have become a high-cost system. Benchmarking shows a clear trend that the most profitable flocks are those that are less reliant on concentrate feeding through maximising pasture in the diet (consider lambing date and pasture management) and high-quality silage.
The technical note in the link at the end of this details rations for concentrate feed requirements for twin-bearing ewes on silage of differing feed quality in terms of metabolisable energy level (ME, MJ/kgDM), largely driven by how leafy the pasture is when cut (maturity) and sward composition, as well as effective silage making.
Comparison of high-quality 11.5ME silage (8.4kg concentrate) compared to poor-quality 9.5ME silage (32.3kg) shows that high-quality forage provides the opportunity to feed 23.8kg less concentrate per twin ewe in the last eight weeks of pregnancy worth £8.60 per head (£360/t).
What’s more, the start of feeding is delayed by four weeks, reducing labour, and on low-quality silage there will be feeding through the lambing at a higher rate.
On 10.5ME silage, total concentrates came to 18.9kg. As such, production of high quality silage is essential for profitability.
There are still many farms that don’t get their silage analysed and some that do but continue to feed the same concentrate ration each year. The graph highlights the cost-saving potential if they were to make high-quality silage and ration appropriately, but also how badly wrong the feeding level can be if silage quality is poorer than anticipated with ewes under fed.
While some farms make consistently good silage across fields and years, this isn’t the norm as we see huge ranges in silage quality, both within year and across years, on the same farms. Getting silage analysed and rations carried out is essential for these farms’ profitability and productivity.
Silage feeding tips
1. If looking to reduce concentrate feeding, then poor quality 9.5ME silage (or hay) is for early winter (January for April lambing flocks) feeding only. Don’t cut much after 25% ear emergence to avoid it.
2. Strive to make good quality silage this summer of at least 10.5ME, aiming for 11+ ME, for multiple bearing ewes, and singles, in the last eight weeks of pregnancy.
3. Silage analysis, and rationing, is essential for optimising nutrition and performance while capitalising on making high-quality silage to reduce supplementation costs.
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