Making the most of your milk contract...
The Ludwell family farm 235 cows on around 350 acres on mainly heavy, wet land in West Devon and are highly committed to dairying. They have used high quality Holstein semen for many years and have a high genetic merit herd with excellent capacity and ability to produce large quantities of high quality milk.
The farm has a contract with Dairy Crest and supplies milk to the Davidstow factory for cheese. The contract rewards large volumes, level profile and in particular high fats and proteins.
Chris Laycock from Kite started working with the family in 2004. At that time the herd of around 175 cows was averaging around 9,800 litres per cow at an average butterfat of 3.67% and an average protein of 3.23%. A priority was to look at ways in which we could improve the milk qualities through management and nutrition, whilst not losing yield.
Significant changes were made to the diet to increase the starches, sugars and fibre levels and at the same time reduce the oil levels. We now aim to achieve 30% starch and sugars with good ADF and NDF fibre levels. The energy density is boosted further to around 12.3 ME by adding protected C16 fats. Rumen buffers are also added to maximise dry matter intakes and avoid the risk of acidosis. These are fed in a “one bag” blend with high quality minerals and Biosaf yeast. Most of the specialist feed supplements come through Kite’s sister company, Advance Sourcing.
The herd also uses Advance DCAB specialist dry cow feed, which ensures that the cows calve in healthily, with no milk fevers or retained cleansings and the cows get off to a flying start to their lactation.
The rolling 12 month milk qualities to October 2008 were 4.68% fat and 3.51% protein at a yield level of around 9,500 litres (yields have eased back in the last 12 months due to a high proportion of heifers coming in to increase cow numbers and 2 very poor forage years due to the exceptionally wet weather in the south west). With a level profile and good bactoscans and cell counts this has resulted in a rolling average milk price of 29.76ppl and in some months the price has been over 31ppl. As everywhere the feed costs have increased recently, but opportunities have been sought to mitigate this and despite the higher feed costs the margins have increased to around £2,000/cow.
The plan for the next 12 months is to aim to produce the best forage quality possible and get back up to 10,000 litres whilst not losing out on qualities so we ensure we continue to make the most of the milk contract.