Abstract #T120

# T120
Silage feeding programs on intensive dairy farms.
Thiago Bernardes*1, Marcus Cardoso1, Luciana Lima1, 1Department of Animal Science, University of Lavras, Lavras, Minas Gerais, Brazil.

Assessments of feeding programs currently utilized by high-producing dairy herds are important to identify issues and adequate management practices. The aim of this study was to provide silage-feeding programs adopted by intensive dairy farms across the top 6 milk producing Brazilian states. One hundred and 46 farms were surveyed from September 2017 to January 2018 for their feeding practices. Herd managers, and their respective nutritionists, were interviewed by using a common survey form. The form consisted of 21 questions, including information on the characteristics of the herd (n = 5), corn silage (n = 4; whole-plant, high-moisture, reconstituted, and earlage/snaplage), sorghum silage (n = 3; whole-plant, high-moisture, and reconstituted), haylage (n = 5; alfalfa, ryegrass and other crops), other silages (n = 1), hay (n = 1), fresh forage (n = 1), and forage/concentrate ratio (n = 1). The mean, standard deviation, maximum, and minimum of data were calculated using the PROC MEANS procedure of SAS. The number of lactation cows ranged from 26 to 2,020 and daily milk production ranged from 600 to 75,100 L/d. The forage/concentrate ratio ranged from 36/64 to 80/20. Fifty-eight percent of the farms had 2 or more forage sources in the diet. Whole-plant corn silage was fed on all farms, while whole-plant sorghum silage was fed by 6.9% of the farms. High-moisture corn, reconstituted grain corn, and earlage/snaplage were used by 24.8, 16.6, and 3.4% of the farms, respectively. Reconstituted grain sorghum was included in 7.6% of the diets. Thus, more than half of the farms (52.4%) adopted grain silages (corn or sorghum) in the diets. Haylage, hay, and fresh forage were used by 28.3, 45.5, and 31.0% of the farms. Ryegrass and bermudagrass haylage were the most used (56.1 and 39%, respectively). Bermudagrass hay was the most used (68.2%), followed by ryegrass (18.2%) and oat hay (10.6%), respectively. Bermudagrass was also the most used as fresh forage (37.8%). Overall, corn was the most widely grown crop for silage. The majority of herds opted for grain silages as sources of grain in the diet.

Key Words: grain silage, cow feeding program, silage utilization