James McWhirter has the Feed Optimizer switched on since he went onto first cut in September this year. The costings on the farm are done by Jason McMinn and although its early days he has confirmed the feed rate has decreased for the three months from Sept to Nov from 0.45 kg of meal per litre last year to 0.38 kg per litre this year. This is estimated to be worth an extra £28,000 per year profit. “Currently my meal bill is lower than last year, however I have more cows milking and milk yield is also up and solids are up this month too. Cows are in better condition, manure is firmer, heats are stronger, indeed the last few scans were good with 59 from 65 confirmed in calve. Our vet asked me what we had changed as he noticed a big difference in the manure when PD’ing, the only change we made was switching on the Lely Astronaut Feed Optimiser, it’s had a dramatic positive effect on the herd,” commented James.

 

The Lely Feed Optimiser option has been tested in farm trials and on thousands of cows. Lely Center Eglish have be testing it in Northern Ireland during the last year. Now the results are coming though the effects are even greater than expected. The unique software, developed by Lely, adjusts the feed levels up and/or down slightly and measures the cow’s response to this. It also takes on board the cost of meal and price of milk. It then works out what is the most profitable feed level and strategy per cow. Cows that give a profitable response to increases in meal get a little more until an optimum level is reached, cows that do not decrease when meal is reduced have a little more taken away. It will also rank each cow based on margin over meal to aid breeding decisions.