OFC - Feeding System Wins Practice with Science Award
UK - A new science-based approach to feeding dairy and beef cattle has taken this year's Oxford Farming Conference and Royal Agricultural Society of England Practice with Science Award.
4 January 2013
1 minute read
Presented at the Oxford Farming Conference the £10,000 award sponsored by AB Agri went to feed wagon manufacturers, Keenan.
The award is to be put toward further research into feed efficiency and carbon footprinting, according to Gerard Keenan, son of the company's founder.
The award is open to individual researches and businesses and institutions that have commissioned valuable agricultural research.
The Keenan Mech-fiber System gives farmers a practical approach to improving their economic, environmental and animal health performance by adopting precision feeding targeted at rumen efficiency.
"Their development reach has a strong international dimension," said John Giles, an Oxford Farming Conference director.
"Keenan worked with feed companies in both developing countries such as India and also in the USA to adapt the system to fit local farming needs.
The Mech-fiber System was established based on work conducted by David Colman on 1,086 dairy farms, which showed that after using the system for a year, milk production increased by 1.7kg per cow per day from 0.64kg less feed - a 10 per cent improvement in feed conversion efficiency.
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