This week we met with Halter to discuss the new features on their app for feed management. Ensuring that our animals are fed well is critical. As we are a system 4 we feed mainly fresh pasture but combine this with other supplement feed.
Quantity and Quality of feed
To get optimum efficiency we need to ensure that we are not only feeding the correct amount of kgDM per day but also that the feed we are feeding is quality and we know what the energy of the feed is. The new features on Halter will help our team be more precise in ensuring that our animals are not only getting the right amount of feed, but importantly they are getting the right amount of energy (MJME) to support maintenance, activity, BCS gain, and production.
This kind of information readily available for our team is going to be another game changer in terms of animal management and performance. Data is such a powerful tool for continuous improvement of our farm operation.
Reliable data
Obviously for this data to be as reliable as possible there are inputs that need to be completed and these inputs need to be accurate. Inputs such as the MJME of the pasture and supplements are needed. While we do test the MJME of some supplements like our own grown maize silage, we rely on figures provided by our suppliers for meal. Obviously this is easier to manage and we can take samples to test and verify our data.
Pasture quality
Our pasture quality however is not tested regularly enough. We are now discussing with our team the merits of purchasing a tester so that we can take regular samples of pasture across all of our paddocks and across different times of the season. If we do this over 2 or 3 seasons, we will have some good data around the consistency of MJME in our paddocks and at different periods. This will then help us to have more confidence in the energy our animals are getting from pasture over the whole season.
Feed quantity
Feed quantity that we input into our data is also not accurate at the moment. We understand our feed across the mob of animals but at the moment there is no accurate way to measure exactly the feed intake per animal. Therefore the amount of feed that we are inputing into our app is just an average across a herd, particularly for pasture (which is the bulk of feed and therefore important). The only feed we know exact quantities per cow is the meal that is fed in shed which is done on an individualised basis. The ultimate of course will be when we can measure exact feed intake in the paddock and on the feedback by animal. That will be a game changer in understanding our animal performance and efficiency.
Data is the future
But as you can see, to meet the efficiency, sustainability and performance requirements of future farming, we need to get more precise. Farming is no doubt changing. Gut feel will not be good enough. It will be about hard data and this is exciting for future generations coming into farming!