13 December 2022
Producing high protein silage and feeding it pre-lambing in combination with high protein soya has helped a Flintshire sheep farm to reduce its feed costs by £2.57 a ewe.
Father and son David and Mathew Roberts run 1,400 ewes at Ty Draw Farm at Llanasa near Holywell, a flock that has expanded from 1,200 head since 2019.
The pair have been very proactive in seeking specialist technical advice through Farming Connect to improve business performance and to make the farm more efficient - their farm is a Farming Connect focus site.
That approach, which has included improving grassland and making changes to ewe nutrition, has led to some very positive outcomes, not least in the feeding regime during the lambing period.
Figures gathered by Farming Connect during a research project to quantify the impact of technical advice show that during the 2020 lambing period feed use reduced by 10.74kg/ewe compared to the previous year - a cost saving of £2.57/ewe.
The savings on purchased feed was achieved through producing very high quality silage from reseeds that incorporate high sugar and red clover varieties and with nutritional advice from independent sheep consultant Kate Phillips.
Big bale silage analysed at 11.2 MJ/kgDM, 14.9% crude protein, 41.4% dry matter and a fermentable energy of 9.0 MJ/kgDM and fed ad lib.
Ewes had traditionally been fed concentrates pre-lambing but following advice, the Roberts’ switched to a high protein soya in 2020; in 2021 they made a further change, to sugar beet pellets and protected rapeseed meal.
Mrs Phillips says making high quality silage has the potential to reduce purchased feed costs dramatically for pregnant ewes, as long as care is taken to balance the silage with supplements that complement the analysis.
That could mean extra fermentable energy, rumen degradable protein or digestible undegradable protein.
“High quality silage can take ewes close to lambing with no supplements at all other than minerals, with additional concentrates often only needed for the last three weeks,’’ says Mrs Phillips.
At Ty Draw Farm, a significant cut was also made to the number of weeks that ewes received the supplementary feed - it had been for seven weeks ahead of lambing but in 2021 twin-bearing ewes were fed for three weeks and singles for just one week.
This was possible because of the improvements made to silage quality, notably producing a forage with high energy and protein content.
To achieve that quality and with advice from ProCam agronomist Rhys Owen, a number of fields have been reseeded over the last five years with five-to-six year cutting and grazing seed mixes that incorporate high sugar and red clover varieties.
It was through Farming Connect that David and Mathew were inspired to make the changes.
They had attended a Farming Connect event where the speaker was independent sheep consultant John Vipond; he gave advice on improving silage quality and feeding it with soya pre-lambing.
Their business, which also produces beef, is now applying less fertiliser and yet is growing more and better quality grass, for silage and for grazing.
The leys are grazed hard and produce two cuts of silage.
Silage was fed ad lib in the 2022 lambing season, ranging in quantity from 3.5-6.5kg a day, depending on quality.
Silage from the 2021 cutting season has analysed very well, ranging from 10.7 to 11.7MJ/kgDM with proteins of up to 18% on the red clover samples.
To supplement that, twins are receiving 0.15 - 0.35kg of supplementary feed in the form of a blend of sugar beet pellets and protected rape while singles were only housed three weeks before lambing. When they came indoors they were given ample bedding and their silage intakes were limited to prevent them getting too fat.
Next year’s ration will include silage made from a September 2021 sown two-to-three year cutting ley incorporating persistent red clover varieties for extra protein content; the aim is to improve quality further and to achieve an even greater reduction in dependence on artificial fertiliser.
David and Mathew also see fodder beet as a potential solution to further reducing their flock’s winter feed requirements; they grew exceptional crops in 2020 and 2021 but poor weather did present challenges before the 2021 lambing period.
This resulted in a need to purchase additional feed prior to lambing in that year to compensate for being unable to graze the fodder beet.
It has been a period of continual improvement for the pair with management changes cemented by the input from Farming Connect services.
Mathew is a part of a Farming Connect discussion group and has attended Farming Connect events. The farm has received funding through the Advisory Service and it is now supported in its role as a focus site.
Non Williams, Farming Connect Red Meat Technical Officer for North Wales, said the next steps at Ty Draw Farm will be to calculate the quantity of feed purchased in 2022.
“We will also be monitoring the performance of the September-2021 cutting ley and quantifying fertiliser usage and the actual savings made,’’ she added.