Freestall Housing Structures – Get the best results from your cattle using a feed pad
- Increase milk production by increasing the feed intake of your dairy cows.
- Decrease feed wastage.
- Reduce stress of cows as you protect them from the elements.
- With enough space to eat you get less bullying. No cows dominating the food. Even the weaker cows have an opportunity to get in and eat, plus injuries are less. The result is less visits from the vet + more food = more milk profits & healthier cows.
- Improved quality (cool & clear) water trough access and management – no water = no milk.
- Improve herd environment management – less disease (e.g. footrot).
- Improve your production per cow.
- Increase your Net Farm Income per cow.
- Better environment for staff efficiency (heat spotting, lethargic cows & injury monitoring).
Financial analysis of dairy farmers shows that farmers who become more efficient managers, as a group, earn a much higher net farm income per cow.
Comparisons between the top third and bottom third performing cattle farmers shows up to 17x net farm income per cow for farmers who manage and control costs.
Other than capital purchases, feed is the highest input cost. Controlling your feed, while improving your output per cows are the two most effective ways of improving your profitability.
A feed pad is the quickest and most cost effective way of addressing these two areas of your farming business.
Build a feed pad close to your dairy and your cows will be able to feed comfortably before and after milking. Quality water access is easily managed. A relaxed, well fed cow produces more milk. The gains quickly add up as your herd starts to produce more milk per cow consistently.
On the feed side, feed out of food requires just the tractor driver. Less labour and more consistent feed management. No loading bags, split bags pouring out on the way, driving feed out to the pastures. Just a simple bulk load and automatic feed conveyor drive through with the tractor.
The simple ability to sweep up spilt feed and return it to the feeding troughs will save you on feed costs. Just these two aspects can save you up to 10% on your feed bill.
At the cost per ton of maize silage in the pit averaging at around R600 per ton and the number of kg per cow per day.
Feed savings example
Let’s say you are feed 10kg of silage per cow per day. This equals 1kg of silage per cow save per day. With a herd of 1,000 cows, you save 1 ton of silage a day. That’s 365 tons per year. At a cost of R600 per ton, you’ve saved R 219 ooo just on wastage.
And if there’s a drought, and the cost of silage sky rockets?
A feed pad may well be the very thing that carries you through these hard times.
With better feeding, what happens to your numbers when you increase of milk per day per cow? Do the math, the numbers start to add up really quickly.
Imagine how savings and increased milk revenues, in this one area, can enable further optimizations in other areas due to extra available cash.
Even if the only gain you achieved from your feed lot was to reduce your feed bill by up to 20%, the freed up cash from these savings could enable any number of other improvements you require.
For example:
- More money to spend on improving the genetics in your herd.
- Build a calf raising pen to improve you calf management.
- Grow you herd size.
- Use the capital to make bulk purchases and gain further savings.
- Capital improvements.
Or are you looking for something more specific, such as:
Farm Equipment Storage Sheds, Fertilizer Shed | Seed Storage Shed | Grain Shed, Rotary Dairy Shed, Calf Raising Pens | Calf-rearing Shed Facilities, Sheep Lambing Houses, Poultry Houses | Broiler Houses | Layer Units, Feedpad | Freestall Housing, Office Warehouse, Steel Structure Warehouse and Steel Structure Church Building.