Microchipping cows
OPINION: Should cows in NZ be microchipped?
Ag machinery specialists Origin Agroup has recently been appointed exclusive importer and distributor of the Mammut range of forage handling equipment, following successful trials during the 2015 season.
Pioneer nutritionist, Dr Bill Mahanna, recently wrote his 52nd and final column for Feedstuffs, a pre-eminent USA feed and feed industry magazine.
The grass has never really fired this spring and as I travel around the country it appears many farmers will have little surplus for silage.
Since the introduction of Pioneer's New Zealand silage trial programme in 1991, silage yields have increased by an average of 310 kgDM/ha/year.
Most losses that occur when you make silage are invisible – as high as 40% of the original cut pasture, says DairyNZ.
Quality silage is a stable feed made from quality pasture preserved in the absence of oxygen by quality fermentation to minimise any loss of feeding value, says DairyNZ.
The latest Pioneer brand ‘Maize for Silage 2015-16’ catalogue gives average estimated growing costs for maize silage planted in high fertility or low fertility paddocks (Table 1).
Each year, from about this time until the end of June, I am often asked to help interpret the results of maize silage feed analyses.
OPINION: Should cows in NZ be microchipped?
OPINION: Legislation being drafted to bring back the controversial trade of live animal exports by sea is getting stuck in the…