KTC De Marke pre-chews grass silage
To improve the digestibility of grass silage KTC De Marke has experimented with mechanically pre-chewing of grass silage. The researchers used a kind of rollers that in the lightest adjustment produced a slightly fibrous mat. The intake trial showed that the cows ate this product well. Although the results of feeding value analysis are yet unknown the De Marke team expects the cows to perform better with this product than with untreated grass silage.
Over the last few years the digestibility of especially the silage cuts later in season has become an increasing concern to the De Marke team. Based on the calculated feeding value the dairy cows perform below expectation. Researchers of Wageningen UR Livestock Research are under the impression this is due to an insufficient degradation of the crude fibre. It looks as if either the cows don’t ruminate long enough or the feed passes the rumen too quickly for the cell walls to crack open and release their digestible content. Beside this mechanical pre-processing, also enzymatical or chemical pre-processing may be possible solutions.
More information with Léon Šebek.
