Conquering the Great Outdoors: Outwintering Replacement Heifers

Outwintering dairy animals can reduce total feed costs by 20 to 30 per cent on dairy farms. However, the success of the system requires farmers to pay close attention to animal performance writes Dr Stephen Whelan, Research and Development manager for nutrition at AHDB Dairy.
calendar icon 12 February 2016
clock icon 2 minute read

AHDB

Successful dairy operations usually aim to calve their replacement heifers down at 0.9 of their mature weight by 24 months of age.

To do this, the animal needs to grow by an average of 0.70 kg/ day, every day for two years.

But what is performance like in out wintered animals?

Recently, an AHDB Dairy funded study reported that animal performance was only 0.25 kg/ day over a 12 week period, highlighting severe underperformance on the nine farms studied. Because this was a research study it was not possible to make adjustments during the 12 weeks.

However, on commercial dairy units farmers should weigh their replacement heifers on a monthly basis and adjust the management as required.

To help in the management of outwintering systems it is useful to know what the requirements of the heifer are and what the feed is capable of providing.

For example a 500 kg heifer growing at 0.7 kg/ day requires approx. 70 MJ of ME per day. The energy contents of the fodder beet, grass and kale used in the study mentioned above were 9.3, 9.8 and 10.0 MJ ME.

This means that our example heifer would need to consume 7 to 8 kg DM of these feed stocks to meet her requirements. This can be a difficult task for the pregnant dairy heifer.

To help bridge the gap between energy available and that supplied, grass silage or concentrates should be used as a supplement.

Another AHDB Dairy funded outwintering study, conducted at Harper Adams University, chose to supplement their animals with grass silage at a rate of 0.35 of DMI. The remainder of the diet consisted of either grass or fodder beet with a housed control group receiving a TMR.

Weight gain in this study averaged 1.1 kg/ day, comfortably meeting the requirement of these high genetic merit heifers, with feed costs that were 20 to 30 per cent below the cost of the TMR fed animals.

More importantly, these results demonstrate that, with careful management, outwintering replacement heifers can meet their growth targets.

Table 1. Factors to consider for a successful outwintering operation

Factor for success

Action required

Site selection

Aim for a free draining, gently sloping site

High yielding crop with high utilisation

Seek agronomic advice on which crops perform best in your area

Live weight gain of 0.7kg/ day +

Measure on a monthly basis

Assess feed quality

Get samples of forage analysed

Balance animal requirements

See Chapter 10 in Feeding+ (click here)

AHDB

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