South Taranaki farmer Chris Amon has seen a strong response from his cows to Ravensdown’s Dairy Hi Carb Plus - a PKE and kibbled maize blend designed for spring.
Chris and Karley Amon own a 90ha farm at Waverley, lease 300ha nearby and are 50/50 sharemilkers on his parents’ 80ha farm and are currently milking 700 cows across the properties.
“We’ve had a big response. The cows have put on a good amount of weight and seem to be cycling a lot better with it. We’ve used PKE in the troughs before but this is the first season we’ve introduced in-shed feeding into our herringbone system.”
Extra minerals and other additives can be added to it such as lime flour, salt and magnesium.
“It all helps the cows to get more value from the grass. We’re aiming at giving 20kg DM per cow per day. When the grass gets shorter, we will probably put grass silage in with the mix. We will change how we use it over the summer but it will still offer a couple more kilos into their diet. It’s another way to get up to four or five kilograms of dry matter into the cows in a short period of time.
“They seem to respond well to this mixture so we’ll play with it this season and see how it goes.”
Chris says when he asked his farm consultant about Dairy Hi Carb Plus, the advice was to go ahead and use it as both the product and the price were good.
“It’s also nice to use the products of your own co-operative.”
The Amons use a range of Ravensdown fertilisers and animal health products, as well as Dairy Hi Carb Plus.