Ration balance module is ideal that combines your cattle nutritionist’s expertise with your herd’s natural ability to thrive. If you participate in milk testing and have a processing computer and an internet connection, you may use this complex calculating model to determine how much feed concentrate you should provide your calves.
Feeding the Animals at Their Optimum Level
Models like this one may help farmers determine a cow’s basic diet. It also helps determine how much more feed is required to attain the greatest potential feed outcomes. As long as the cow farmer and adviser agree on goals, the feed concentrate recommendations are automatically customized for your animals. Up to €100 per cow each year is safe due to this change.
Benefits of Ration Balancing Software
The Animals are in Good Health
There are no extremes to worry about when it comes to your animals’ well-being. Animals are not overtaxed. Therefore, fertility difficulties and udder health issues decrease.
Higher Milk Yields and Reduced Costs of Production Lead to a Better Feed Balance
The cow model estimates the optimal dosage of concentrate based on the targeted production targets, the total basic ration, the animal’s characteristics, and the animal’s response to the recommended quantity of concentrate (animal potency).
In Charge of Your Own Feeding Approach
You and your adviser work together to decide the absolute lowest or maximum amount of concentrate you should use. For example, lactation days are used to determine this. The user can determine the flexibility of ‘YieldFeeding’ at a certain breastfeeding stage in this manner.
Labor-Saving
You no longer have to adjust the amount of concentrate you use on your own. Based on the ration, daily output, and predicted production, animals get just the amount of concentrate they need. You don’t have to worry that an animal’s milk production will be temporarily reduced since it will not cease consuming concentrates.
Neither the farmer nor the adviser has any say in how difficult the animals are. To get the most out of their feed, a variety of tasks provide to the animals.
Also Read: Best Cattle Management Apps for Farmer
Advantages of Opting for the Ration Balancing Program
- The most efficient utilization of local feed resources at the lowest feasible cost.
- The addition of additional fat and SNF boost the milk production
- a rise in daily net earnings
- Enhances the success rate of conception
- reduces the time between calving and enhances the lifespan of more productive animals
- Beneficial for animals’ overall well-being
- Accelerates maturation in developing calves by increasing growth rate.
Management of Dairy Cattle with a Balanced Ration
Dairy producers often employ confinement systems with mixed rations (TMRs) and confinement systems in which forages and concentrated feed are provided separately and pasture-based systems for feeding their cows.
Totally Mixed Rations
TMRs include all of the essential nutrients in a single, well-mixed serving. TMRs offer a nutritional benefit over other feeding methods in that fiber, and non-fiber diet components are supplied in equal amounts throughout the feeding time. Thus, rumen pH is stabilized, and healthy rumen conditions are maintained, even at high-calorie intake rates.
In the administration of TMR diets, dry-matter concentrations of moist meals must be monitored often. This is because dry-matter nutrient concentrations in feeds are used to construct diets, whereas wet-weight nutrient concentrations blend components.
To guarantee that the nutritional profile of the final diet is as planned, correct dry-matter concentration measurements must be used. “Routine examination of the TMR mixture for significant nutrient components, such as moisture or fiber, is important in ensuring that the constituent nutritional profiles and proportions are compatible with the planned diet formulation and are stable over time.
TMR Managing
One of the most critical aspects of using TMR mixes is managing the supply and availability of feed. A steady supply of food should be available to cattle at all times. Providing enough bed space is essential, with recommended linear space for each animal ranging from 45 to 60 cm.
Clean bunk every day and weigh orts to assess a group’s daily calorie consumption accurately. Orts should account for between 2% and 4% of the total quantity supplied to ensure adequate feed availability. The orts’ particle length should be monitored to ensure that feed sorting, which normally results in big particles being left behind, is not happening.
Two or more nursing and dry groups are ideal for efficient utilization of TMR diets; at a minimum, there must be a lactating cow group as well as a non-breeding one. Cows should be divided into two separate dry cow groups. For example, if one cow is in the first 4–6 weeks of the dry phase and another 2–4 weeks before calving, they should be placed in different groups.
There should be a lead factor in the diets for lactating cow groups, which means that the diet should be balanced to produce more milk than the average for the category. This guarantees that the nutritional needs of the higher-producing cows in the herd are being satisfied.
Feeding groups’ numbers and lactation stages affect optimal lead factor values. Optimal lead factor values. Employing two groups of nursing cows often suggests feeding for >20% of average output.
Component-fed Or Unmixed Ration
Methods that segregate concentrates from forages, known as Rations Confinement feeding, are using in many parts of the globe. Compared to the TMR system, this method has the advantage of not requiring specialist mixing and feed delivery equipment and being able to adapt the quantity of concentrate fed to the demands of individual animals.
During the day, cows consume starches and other sugars with little or no fiber, such as milk, which is often the only carbohydrate source. Because of this, substantial changes in rumen pH are possible, which might hinder fiber digestion and worsen rumen health in the process.
Avoid large focus meals with the use of several systems. When cows receive computer-delivered diets, they can be recognized electronically. Moreover, a computerized feeding mechanism distributes tiny, individually-designed meals throughout the day.
Animals are Fed in Pastures
Forage resources in pasture systems are now better in use thanks to modern methods of pasture management. Such systems need intense pasture management to achieve optimum dry matter and nutrient yields and to feed and nourish high-producing contemporary dairy cows.
Paddocks need rotation so that animals feed on forages at their peak growth and there is no overgrazing. For the most part, electric fences are used to create paddocks out of pastures. Cattle move between paddocks when forages reach ideal development phases to maximize dry-matter production and nutritional content
There is a possibility that the decreased maximum consumption rates of dry matter in pastures will restrict nutrient absorption. As a result, the cow will need additional energy sources to produce as much milk as possible.
Un-supplemented grass diet results in milk production rates seldom exceeding 25 kilograms per day. Cereal grains and grain byproducts contain significant levels of fermentable fiber. They can use as sources of energy-boosting carbohydrates. Supplementing with protein and, in particular, RUP sources may be necessary. Grass protein concentrations may be high. However, rumen degradation of protein in pasture grasses is normally high.
Conclusion
Nutritional sub-models that comprehend cow nutrition and the intricate digesting system of a cow are an important part of successful ration balancing systems. The algorithms effectively forecast cow needs with a wide variety of feeding conditions and a wide range of components.
