Hungry cows crazy about distillers syrup supplement
Last season I installed an in-shed feeding system and whatever the farm failed to deliver in feed, I planned to make up in condensed distillers syrup.
It’s not super cheap, but it’s easy to get. The price is always consistent, there is no need to sign up for contracts, it is virtually labour-free and the cows love it. I’d fed the stuff before in an emergency situation when drought struck in Taranaki one November and I’d seen how well the cows did on it. Yes, CDS was going to make my season indestructible.
Of course there was cost involved with buying a big storage tank and pump, and setting up troughs in the shed for the cows to lick away at the CDS as they were being milked. But this was my year for leasing a farm and with no other party to consider, I could do as I pleased.
In the beginning I was rapt with the system, all I had to do to deliver my cows a couple of kilos of extra supplementary feed was press a button in the shed to send a wave of gooey, brown, high-energy feed right in front of their noses. Fool proof . . . Hah!
Of course, as with anything new, there were a few teething problems.
Firstly the installation of the setup was a big In the beginning I was rapt with the system, all I had to do to deliver my cows a couple of kilos of extra supplementary feed was press a button in the shed to send a wave of gooey, brown, high-energy feed right in front of their noses. Fool proof . . . Hah! rush because I had just arrived in Northland and bang, calving was happening straight away so the first lot of cows missed out on their CDS. My original plan was to introduce them to it right from their very first milking onwards. But that was OK.
My main worry was that the seven or so minutes opportunity the cows got to eat their CDS while getting milked, would not be long enough for them to consume a significant amount. Well no need to worry about that . . . they got stuck right in to the CDS and were able to suck it up at a frightening pace.
Frightening because it quickly dawned on me that if I kept on feeding it to them ad-lib, they would very quickly literally eat me out of house and home.
Remember the advance payout was only $3.85 last year, nowhere near enough to keep the girls in their CDS habit. They’d sucked up a fair few tonnes of the stuff before I realised this.
I arrived on a farm last season with very low cover and the cows were quite restricted in their pasture intake right through calving and probably until November to be honest.
It was one of those seasons where you start off on the wrong foot, get caught up in a quick round and never get quite back on top of it. This meant the cows were charging in to the shed hungry and pigging out on the CDS.
Then they wouldn’t want to leave the shed. Normally mild-mannered cows were causing mayhem. Twenty-six cows would crush up in a row that is designed to fit 18.
The weak ones were going down and getting crushed. Cows were literally climbing into the CDS troughs. Not cool. The shed was getting smashed up. One cow died – it hung itself on a rail right in front of me trying to get to the CDS. I orchestrated that!
This year, I have plenty of grass. The advance payout is $5. I am feeding the CDS from day one to calm cows with grass-filled bellies.
The CDS is complementing cows fully fed on pasture and I’m hoping to reap the rewards from extra milk solids – hopefully enough to pay for the CDS and a bit left over for me.