Feed Conversion Efficiency – at What Cost?

Feed costs are typically the largest component of operational costs in a dairy business, typically making up 50 – 60% of total costs, depending on feeding system, seasons and conditions. Hence it is vital that what is being fed to the cows results in good milk production. David Barber, DairyNEXT nutritionist joins us this month to discuss the important topic of feed conversion efficiency. He outlines what it is, how to measure it, targets for different types of feeding systems and factors that can impact it. He also introduces a metric he calls ‘True Feed Conversion Efficiency’, which he uses to determine how economical a farm’s feed conversion efficiency is. 

Links to useful resources related to this podcast:

David Barber: qlddairynutrition@hotmail.com 

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It is brought to you in partnership the Hunter Local Land Services

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The information discussed in this podcast are for informative and educational purposes only and do not constitute advice. 

Transcript

The Business of Dairy 

Episode #38 Transcript – “Feed Conversion Efficiency - at What Cost?”

Sheena Carter:  Welcome to the Business of Dairy podcast. I'm your host, Sheena Carter, Development Officer with the New South Wales Department of Primary Industries Dairy Team. Feed costs are the largest operational cost in a dairy business, so it is important that we manage and utilise feeds optimally. Nutritionist, David Barber, joins the podcast this episode to discuss the ins and outs of feed conversion efficiency, which indicates how efficiently feed is being converted to milk. We address how to measure it, targets to aim for and ways in which feed conversion efficiency can be improved within your system as well as looking at true feed conversion efficiency to determine if the feed conversion efficiency you are achieving is economical.

Welcome to the Business of Dairy podcast, Dave. We recently caught up at the Raising the Roof conference in the Hunter Valley, which was a conference for intensive farming dairy farmers. And you were presenting on feeding cows for efficiency with, I guess, respect to the more intensive feeding systems as that was the focus of the conference. But you've kindly agreed to be my guest today to discuss feed conversion efficiency in our dairy system. So it's good to have you as a guest and thank you for joining me.

David Barber: Thanks, Sheena, for having me and hopefully, I can provide some insights into feed conversion efficiency in our dairy production system.

Sheena Carter: Yeah, well, it's a very, very important area. There are lots of important areas in the dairy business, but it is a driver of our farm performance. So just before we kick off, though, can you give our listeners a bit of an introduction to yourself, your history and background and what you're currently doing?

David Barber: Currently, I'm a nutrition consultant providing nutritional management advice, feeding system advice, for mainly dairy farmers in the northern Australian region. Also dabbling a little bit in the beef industry. My background is, I led the research team at the Department of Ag and Fisheries at Gatton for a number of years and was involved in research and extension in the nutrition and forage production area. But my initial background was beef and sheep from western New South Wales and western Queensland.

Sheena Carter: Right. So uh, yeah. Broad range of regions and industries, but specifically really around nutrition within those. Excellent. So I guess, look, when we're talking about the dairy industry, we know from our industry data that feed costs typically can make up 50 to 60% of our total costs in our business, depending on the feeding system, depending on the season and the year that we're in and managing. So it is really important that we manage our feed well and try to optimise, I guess, our milk production from that feed. Can you just explain to the listeners what is feed conversion efficiency and how do we measure it?

David Barber: So feed conversion efficiency is a measure, a key performance indicator or a nutritional measure that we use to see what the response is per kilo of dry matter that we're feeding. So it's measured as litres of milk per kilo of dry matter or you could measure it as kilos of milk solids per kilo of dry matter as well. The thing from an FCE point of view is that we could have two farms with the same FCE, but then actually different financial returns. So I actually prefer to use what we call a true FCE, which we developed in DAP. And there is an FCE audit tool that's available through DAP that actually measures not only feed conversion efficiency. But it also calculates true feed conversion efficiency or true FCE, which is the dollars of milk per dollar of feed fed because one of the challenges I see is that as our systems have intensified we've spent more money on high-quality feed to drive production and if the rate of production doesn't increase at a greater rate than the feed costs then we've actually not achieved anything and we've, you know, we might have a higher FCE but we may not have actually improved our bottom line and to be honest what's the point of trying to improve productivity if you're not going to make any more money. So I think that's the challenge in our system and it's one of the measures we can use, along with a number of other measures, you know, margin over feed costs etc. to assess our business. So using it on its own is useful and it's a good point, you know, for farmers and I facilitate a discussion group, a business and advanced nutrition group, that they do that on a six-weekly basis when we catch up. They actually fill out the audit and I collate the data so that we actually know where they're going. And any of my clients actually get a report with those things on there so that we can see where we're traveling. Right. And that gives you more of a month-to-month or a day-to-day value rather than an end-of-year or a historic value that we might see.

Sheena Carter: Yes. So when you're measuring it, like, six weekly, you're measuring it for that day or you're measuring it over that…?

David Barber: Yeah, it's a single point in time. And you could do it as an average for the month as well. But, you know, keeping track of feed costs on a monthly basis, where we can do it on a single daily diet cost, relatively quickly and easily. And so there will be some fluctuations from day to day, both in FCE and true FCE, as we see that vat go up and down on a daily basis anyway. 

But to me, I think the key principle is that we can use that measure to see how efficient nutritional management is. And it might be the fact that dry matter intake is sufficient, but the quality of the diet may be what's holding back that milk response. So, you know, if we're spending X amount, we want to make sure that we're optimising the amount of milk that we're getting per kilo of dry matter that's being fed.

Sheena Carter: Yeah. So I guess by measuring it at that point, that single point in time, it gives you the ability to look at your numbers and go, oh, hang on, that's not looking good. What's going on? Let's reset, readjust, or try and identify what's causing it, readjust and improve from there rather than, as you were referring to earlier, you can calculate it on an annual basis, which is obviously looking backwards, but that's water under the bridge. Can't change that, can you?

David Barber: Historically, if you look at those farms that are involved in that discussion group, typically this time of year is probably the worst time from an FCE, but also a true FCE, perspective. And then when we hit, sort of, spring and we've got, you know, particularly those farms with ryegrass in the system, our margin over feed costs and our true FCEs are much, much higher.

Sheena Carter: Yeah. So I guess on that point, you're going to have, you know, potentially seasonal variation.

David Barber: Yes.

Sheena Carter: And this might be jumping ahead a bit, but I guess you're also going to get, would it be fair to say, variation depending on your calving pattern?

David Barber: Yes, definitely. I mean, in the year-round calving systems that have got a fairly flat calving pattern, that's probably negated. We've found that a lot of our systems, particularly in the north, have moved towards not calving down in summer. So you do end up with a skew and a lot start in autumn and finish in spring. And so you do get that stage of lactation effect, particularly when you're running at an average days of milk of 80 or 100 for the total herd in the middle of winter, then that feed conversion efficiency when they're at peak lactation is going to be much better. And you're getting better bang for your buck, particularly if we're getting lower cost feeds going into the system at that time with ryegrass, etc.

Sheena Carter:  Yep, true. Excellent. All right. So there's been industry targets set and developed within Australia, I think developed through the Grains to Milk program.

David Barber: Yes, that's correct. Many years ago with the five different systems that were highlighted at that point.

Sheena Carter: Yeah, so can you explain what those targets are across… and you better explain the five different feeding systems as well, otherwise, that won't make much sense. So yeah, I guess start with the five feeding systems that we've got within Australia and some of the targets for them.

David Barber: The five feeding systems were, they started off with a pasture base with a low grain input system, to a pasture base with a moderate to high, then moving into a partial mixed ration system where we're feeding some, either concentrates in a seasonal basis or through a wagon or conserved forage, through to feeding that all year round but also having pasture in the system. And the last system is your total mixed ration, which is essentially, everything's provided on a feed pad 365 days a year. So, the different feed conversion efficiencies were developed for each of those systems and they range from one litre of milk per kilo of dry matter for your pasture-based low concentrate inputs, right through to 1.5, 1.6 for your total mixed ration systems. Those targets are based on trying to get a higher efficiency to cover that increased cost of production within those more intensive systems. But within a system, you can still see a lot of variation between farms. They may have the same FCE but their actual cost of production could range from $6.50 to $11.50 a cow, a day. You know, that's dependent on forage type, ingredients used, you know, a lot of by-products being used in some of our total mixed ration systems that can offset some costs but also help drive productivity at the same time.

Sheena Carter: Yep, for sure. So, you know, you've spoken about a range within a system in feed conversion efficiency, and I know that you've done some research work in the past where you looked at pasture-based systems, PMR, and TMR within Queensland?

David Barber: Yes.

Sheena Carter: And that was across different seasons?

David Barber: Yeah, it was back in 2011. We surveyed 70 farms across Queensland and they ranged from purely pasture-based right through to total mixed ration systems and tried to get a fairly even cross-section of the industry at that time as well. And we looked at feed conversion efficiency in summer and also in winter, just to see what that seasonal variation might be, and one of the key outcomes from that is that obviously forage quality at different times of the year was going to drive your feed conversion efficiency, plus environmental temperatures, heat stress, all of those things played a factor in that, but also the variation between farms within season was quite dramatic and to me that comes back, particularly, to forage quality. 

Forage quality was probably one of the biggest drivers, and if we looked at variation of, say, corn silage on farm, there was a 20% unit difference in NDF concentration, for example. And the same thing was seen with sorghum but at a higher, higher level. So to me, that's the variation that sits within our farming community. So to expect that we're going to get the same feed conversion efficiency when we've got that much variation in forage quality is, you know, unless we're balancing it, you know, the same for every farm, we're going to see variation.

Sheena Carter: Within a pasture-based system, it's still going to be the same principle, I would imagine, in terms of your grazing management, grazing at the right stage, quality.

David Barber: Tropicals versus temperates from a seasonal perspective. So in our region, you know, it's annual ryegrass during winter and usually kikuyu or Setaria during summer. So that difference between your C4 and C3 plants, your tropical and temperate plants, but also how well it's managed. You know, some of the systems we surveyed were, basically, free access to whatever they wanted, where others were well managed grazing systems where pasture management was pretty top-notch. So, and that's where we saw some differences, as well, and, you know, some of the pasture-based farms that were grazing lucerne actually had much higher feed conversion efficiencies than those that were on, definitely on tropical pastures, but particularly on temperate pastures as well.

Sheena Carter: Yep. And so, this is partly driven by NDF or what's...?

David Barber: Forage quality but digestibility of that NDF as well, yeah. So even though the lucernes tended to show a higher NDF concentration, the digestibility of that NDF is much better being a legume. And so we're seeing much better responses from a, firstly an intake, because you're getting passage rate through the rumen and you're getting higher intake levels. But then secondly, you've got a high-quality forage being eaten, which means that the response, or the amount of nutrients available for a milk response, is higher.

Sheena Carter: Right. And just slightly off-topic, but grazing lucerne, how was bloat managed?

David Barber: Most of our farms that use lucerne as a key part of their diet don't have too many major issues with bloat. I mean, Rumensin is used for bloat control as probably a good potential preventative. But one of the things, particularly if they're PMR systems, that we've, sort of, pushed, is that if you can put some mixed ration into the system before they go grazing, that pretty much eliminates the risk and we probably find there's less of an incidence of bloat in systems that are using it every day, rather than they come onto it for five days and then they don't see it for a month. Where, if you've got a system that's actually got lucerne in there most days of the year they have the ability to manage it, yeah. 

Sheena Carter: Yep, excellent. Good. Sorry, slight side note, but just curious. Rightio, anything else that came out of that research work? You know, we've got the winter variation, the summer variation. What was some of the things that you saw? Were there differences between the winter and summer results?

David Barber: Yeah, definitely there were, and probably a 10% to 15% difference in what we saw on that same farm. And most of those farms at that point in time would have been year-round calving systems. So stage of lactation is probably not going to be a key thing that's been affecting that result, and we did take that into account. But, yeah, seeing the effect of heat stress, particularly if we were there in, sort of, February, March, so the hottest part of the year, the most humid part of the year for us, so that meant that that's going to have an impact. And hence, you know, we're 13 years on and there's a lot of our systems now progressing towards housing as a way of managing heat stress, but also trying to improve productivity per cow.

Sheena Carter: Yep. So I guess on heat stress, just to sort of spell it out a bit, why is heat impacting feed conversion efficiency? What's happening within the system?

David Barber: There's a twofold effect when it comes to heat stress. Firstly, it's an intake reduction because of the effect of heat stress. A panting cow isn't going to eat, but there's also a physiological effect as well. And some work that was done back in 2008 when we were at Mutdapilly Research Station, clearly showed that 50% of the drop in milk production and milk composition was driven by feed intake and the other 50% was driven by physiological effects. And that work agrees with a lot of other work that's been done, both in Australia, and overseas. And so from that perspective, we need to make sure that we've got heat abatement strategies in place, whether it be nutritional or physical, you know, shade. But we also need to try and help promote intake at that point in time because that's having a fairly big effect as well.

Sheena Carter: Yep, excellent. So, I'm a farmer, what are some of the things that are going to impact feed conversion efficiency on my farm, or where do I start looking in my system and my management to improve feed conversion efficiency?

David Barber: So forage quality by far, number one. And the thing that we look at is NDF concentration but also NDF digestibility. From that perspective, it's hard to manage that from an agronomic perspective, other than stage of growth but in our cereal silages we're growing them to get the contribution of starch into the system so you're managing the fibre components much harder, compared to say, a pasture based system where we're grazing at a leaf stage and we're hoping to allocate so that they're eating leaf, which is going to have a lower fibre content than the stem. So that to me is number one. And if we can improve NDF digestibility, then we've got an improvement in both intake and milk production that will follow from that.

Particularly in our mixed ration feeding systems, the quality of that silage, mould, anything of that nature, which is going to have an impact on intake, which is then going to flow on and have an effect on milk production, which affects your FCE. So from that perspective, making sure that what we feed is the best quality that we can provide at that point in time is definitely a key, key point. 

From a management point of view, stage of lactation definitely. So, earlier lactation you're going to have a higher feed conversion efficiency relative to late lactation and as our herd sizes increase there's ways of managing that through splitting herds. Some of my clients are actually splitting herds to be able to feed different groups according to stage of lactation and production level so that we can actually feed those fresh cows to their requirements, rather than the average cow in the herd, which might be 150 days and therefore we're utilising nutrients that are going to meet her needs and improve that peak milk production because an increase in one litre of peak lactation is equivalent to about 250 litres across that lactation. So, if we can get an extra five litres, we've got another thousand litres a cow across that whole lactation. So that's a key driver, and to me, if we're going to be feeding high-cost feeds, we put it into that fresher cow that's got the ability to drive milk production.

Sheena Carter: So where are they typically doing that split? Is it less than 150 days of milk, greater than 150 days of milk, or what are you seeing there?

David Barber: It depends on farm to farm, but in a year-round calving system, what I like to do is, actually, do a one-third, two-thirds. So one-third fresh herd, two-thirds stale herd, because then we get a bigger bang for our buck when we've got feed cost savings. So I like to look at the fresh herd, say it's $8 a cow, a day, diet cost, and what we're aiming to do is make that stale herd half the cost. And because it's two-thirds of the herd, you're getting, you know, it's not an average of six then, it's more like an average of, you know, five dollars a cow. So to me, using management strategies like, splitting and feeding to stage of lactation, has huge potential to not only improve productivity per cow, which will increase your feed conversion efficiency, but also to reduce feed-related costs. And one of my clients in central Queensland, they went down that path three years ago, and I think in the first year they improved productivity off the farm, the same number of cows, by 25% and reduced feed-related costs by 3.3 cents a litre. So it's definitely doable and particularly in our year-round herds, I think there's so much potential, but it just comes back to the size of the herd and whether it's going to be worth it from a labour perspective.

Sheena Carter: Yes, yep, fair point, fair point. So what are some of the other areas that are going to impact?

David Barber: Yeah, definitely if we've got any health issues, cows that aren't eating, obviously, that being a key part of the feed conversion efficiency calculation, that's where you're going to have some issues. From that perspective, making sure that we've got those things sorted. Some other key things are feed availability. If we're not providing enough feed, particularly in our mixed ration systems, you know, if we're cleaning the feed pad up at the end of each feed then that's, sort of, telling us that we need to put more feed out. Same in a pasture-based system, if our allocations are fully grazed or overgrazed, then potentially we need to look at increasing our allocation to try and get that. 

Some other things in a mixed ration system, sorting or overmixing or undermixing can be an issue as well, particularly if we're changing chop length of those silages and you can start to see cows then starting to push silage or push feed around trying to look for things they want or don't want, which will have an effect on intake.

Another one is wastage and feed pad design – having access to feed on feed pads, wastage on feed pads. There was some work done in 2009 with the Grains to Milk Project through Dairy Australia and they saw a wastage range between 0% and 35% of feed that was fed. That's huge and potential gains can be made in that respect because we're paying for it. We've put it out. But if it's actually not going down their throat then that's going to be a key one.

Sheena Carter: No it makes it very expensive feed all of a sudden doesn't it? And, you know, I think when we've already got, you know, depending where you are and what sort of feeds you're feeding, what sort of feeds you might be bringing into the business, yep, it can be quite an expensive exercise, so you don't want to leave any of the meals sitting on the table.

David Barber: No. The other thing too, I think Sheena, is that, you know, access to water – good quality water, we probably overlook it, we definitely do in our region and I would think it would probably be the same in other regions, that we need to make sure that we've got access to clean, cool water, particularly around feed. Having moisture in that rumen is particularly important and if we're not doing that, then that's going to have an impact on intake and so on and so on. And particularly the ability of that rumen environment to digest that feed in a timely manner so that that drives our dry matter intake as well.

Sheena Carter: Yep, excellent. So, you're speaking both about pasture-based systems and our PMR and TMR systems. And our targets for efficiency within the TMR systems are quite a bit higher than what we see in pasture-based systems. So that 1.6 litres per kilogram of dry matter. Obviously, we need to do that, you've already explained that, but why do we expect to see these increases in these systems? What is it that can, if it's done well, drive this higher feed conversion efficiency in these more intense systems? Is there variability?

David Barber: There is definitely variability. Number one is dry matter intake. And when we look at dry matter intake, there's a point that we get to that we automatically go above one to one. So obviously the first thing we've got to meet is maintenance requirement, and that's around two percent of the body weight. If we then feed that cow and take three percent of their body weight, for 600 kilo cow its 18 kilos of dry matter, we tend to see about 18 litres of milk. As we increase above that 18 kilos, the response isn't one to one, the reason is that we're watering down the proportion of that maintenance requirement. So anything over and above maintenance that we feed, we're actually getting a higher response for because we've already met those maintenance requirements. It's a bit like if I found the buffet on a regular basis and didn't exercise, then the results are I'm going to end up… 

Sheena Carter: More than one-to-one. [Laughs]

David Barber: Yeah, it'll be more than one-to-one. So it's the same principle, if we can maximise intake, the milk response then is driven by diet quality. And so we often don't see the responses, in particular, with forage sorghum silage diets – we don't tend to see the same milk response that we might see with corn silage. It may not be to do with the diet balance as such, but it could be to do with the digestibility of that forage and yes, to do with the composition or the formulation of that diet. 

And so, we often see higher intakes but don't see the milk response to that. And if I look at some of my clients that are averaging over 30 litres, they've consistently got 23, 24 kilos of dry matter intake every single day of the year. Those that are sitting around 18 or 19, they're on 18 or 19 kilos of dry matter. So to me, that's the big thing. And then if we can improve the quality once we get to those higher intakes, which actually has an effect on intake at the same time, then we start to see, you know, we've met the maintenance requirements. So if we've balanced it right, we're actually going to see a milk production response rather than a body condition score response, for example. So that's where we'll drive our feed conversion efficiency in those systems is firstly dry matter intake, but then quality of that total diet. And in those systems, particularly intensive systems, there's more of a reliance on starch, not only from grain, but also from our conserved forages – corn silage, barley silage, sorghum silage – that are contributing. So their contribution from an energy intake is much higher than what it would be from say a pasture-based system and why we tend to see a higher intake, but also a higher milk response at the same time.

Sheena Carter: So I guess part of that is you've got, in these more intensive systems, you've got much more control over the diet that is being fed to the cows. There's less variation on a day-to-day basis compared to a pasture-based system where your pasture quality might be changing depending on the time of year. Your allocation might have been different. So there's less variability there. And I guess because of that, you've therefore got a more stable rumen environment.

David Barber: Yeah. And to drive FCE, you know, to me, the consistency is the key, making sure that we're doing the same thing every day as best we can, given the ingredients and the, you know, the costs that we've got. And in a pasture-based system, you know, to me, it's not about trying to achieve 1.6, but in our system, because it's relative to our feed-related costs at the same time. So a 1.1 or a 1.2 is still a good target in those systems to actually optimise your return based on your feed costs for that type of diet. And we see that in our systems, you know, as our PMR systems come into start grazing ryegrass in the next couple of weeks, that they'll jump from, say, a 1-1.1 to a 1.2-1.3. And that's because we've got better forage quality coming in on top of the high-quality forage that we do have that's conserved and being fed through a mixer wagon, but the biggest bang for buck is we've dropped cost out at the same time. You're moving from a forage that's worth 30 cents a kilo of dry matter to 12, 13 cents a kilo of dry matter and quality is probably equivalent or better.

Sheena Carter: Yes, there’s many moving cogs in a dairy system. And even within a feeding system, there’s many moving cogs to try and balance and get it all right. So could we just go back? You mentioned at the beginning, I can't remember how you phrased it… So we've got feed conversion efficiency; we're looking at margin over feed cost; but you're looking at that two to one return.

David Barber: From a true feed conversion efficiency, so actually looking at dollars of milk per dollar of feed fed, and that's feed fed. So my target is that we actually look to double our money. So we want $2 per dollar of feed that's fed. So if our diet cost is $8 a cow a day, we want to be making $16. Our true FCE needs to be $16, or milk income needs to be $16, to make that work. And we see, you know, some of the clients would be sitting in the mid three dollars, so $3.50 per dollar fed. And once we get down towards that $2 per dollar of feed fed we start to see that things become a lot tighter on farm. I've noticed that, yeah, if you're traveling, sort of, $2 - $2.50 it's a lot tighter than if you're $3 - $3.50, and in some cases $4. So, you know, it's reflective of margin over feed cost as well so your ability to pay for labour and all those other components that come into it. 

The key thing I think from a feed cost point of view is that if we can have a 10% improvement in feed related costs, when it's 60% of the total costs, we’re going to have a bigger bang for our buck than trying to save 10% on shed costs, for example.

Sheena Carter: Yes, you're just tinkering around the edges there, aren't you? 

David Barber: Yeah, you are. Yeah.

Sheena Carter: Yep. No, that's fantastic, Dave. I think this has been a fantastic discussion. Very insightful and lots of good points for farmers. Are there a few key points that you would like to leave with farmers, whether they're pasture-based or PMR, TMR farms? What are some of the key things to think about when they're looking at their feed conversion efficiency?

David Barber: Yeah, irrespective of the feeding system – because they're all relative, and the thing is that consistency is the key. The more consistent we can make that system, the better outcomes you're going to have. I think, implement management strategies that are going to have benefits not only from a productivity point of view, but also from a cost point of view. So for example, splitting herds when it's appropriate can have huge benefits. And there are other management strategies that are available as well to do that around types of feeds used, et cetera, et cetera. 

But to me, nutritional management, or managing our feed conversion efficiency, is not only about managing productivity it's also managing cost and particularly diet cost. My strategy when I go onto farm is that, can we get more milk but can we do it at a cheaper price? You often spend more money but what you're doing is you're actually increasing the milk at a higher rate than the diet cost goes up so therefore your margin over feed cost improves which therefore improves your feed conversancy and true feed conversion efficiency at the same time. So driving intake, better quality feeds, but if we can if we can improve productivity and save on feed costs then it's a better outcome for everybody. 

Sheena Carter: Absolutely. Yep, and I guess this is always a challenge. I think feed quality, yes, absolutely vital. We do get challenges like wet conditions or dry conditions that can throw a bit of a spanner in the works, but you ultimately have to keep a focus on it and manage it as best you can.

David Barber: I look for the low-hanging fruit too. A farm visit the other day, first visit that I'd been there, and straight up we could save $26,000 on minerals. It just comes back to looking at it in a different perspective in terms of what's the requirement versus what we're feeding? And there's a fairly big difference.

Sheena Carter: I think we might have found another podcast topic, Dave.

David Barber: I'm pretty passionate on that one because I do not subscribe to the prescription method of feeding minerals and you look at the cost in their total diet. It can be horrendous and we don't see improvements in feed conversion efficiency with feeding minerals, I can tell you that.

Sheena Carter: Yeah, okay I'm going to book you in for another podcast because I think that is a very interesting area myself.

David Barber: Huge one, huge one.

Sheena Carter: Yeah, excellent. Well thank you, Dave, it's been a great discussion and I'm sure the listeners will have taken lots from it today.

David Barber: Thank you for inviting me and for your time today. Thanks, Sheena.

Sheena Carter: Thanks, Dave.

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