The on-farm milk production, pasture intake and silage intake of cows fed either whole-crop cereal silage or pasture silage as a supplement to pasture was compared in four herds in autumn and two herds in spring during 2002 and 2003. The number of cows per herd ranged from 90 to 270 cows per feeding treatment. Silages were supplemented at rates determined by farmer feed budget. The amount offered ranged from 3 to 6.6 kg DM/cow/ day. Pasture intake estimates ranged from 7.2 to 13.0 kg DM/cow/day. Milksolids (MS) production ranged from 0.93 to 1.61 kg/cow/day in autumn and from 1.33 to 1.98 kg/cow in spring. The feeding of whole-crop cereal silage produced more MS production in two autumn studies compared to feeding pasture silage as a supplement (+0.08 kg/cow/d; P
The utilisation of whole-crop cereal silage, when fed on pasture, is an unknown factor when assessing the economics of whole-crop cereal silage in dairy farming systems. This study aimed to document the utilisation of whole-crop cereal silage and compare it to the utilisation of pasture silage fed under the same conditions. Data was collected from nine whole-crop cereal and two pasture silage feeding events during the autumn and spring of 2004. The concentration of silage fed in spring (3.04 kg (dry matter) DM/m) was lower (P
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