Description
New stable to increase animal welfare (Winner of animal welfare award 2017); in the new stable the place per cow was doubled even though the old stable still complied with the legal requirements; a paddock according to EU-organic requirements was add-ed to the stable on the conventional farm.
Focus on high quality silage: optimal timing of cuts, according to reference grass spe-cies; 24 hours from cut to silo; yield of 400 ha grassland ensiled within 3 to 4 days, to ensure high fodder quality; 4-6 cuts (high intensity compared to other farms in this re-gion) Silos were changed from few large storage places to more smaller storage possi-bilities to allow more flexible management of grassland and fodder; thus also sufficient feed forward rate could be ensured.
Animal welfare – high quality of staple fodder
The new stable combines improvements in animal welfare and workplace design. Passageways for cattle were changed accordingly. Technical equipment has to be adopted to the cultivated area. Slurry application will have to be adopted to in-creasing requirements of the new fertilization act in Germany, since until now the farmer applied parts of the slurry in autumn to ensure clean fodder, even though the nutrient efficiency might be lower, compared to application in spring time.
Farm description
Environment
- Soil type: Mainly sandy clay and loam
- Climate: Temperate oceanic climate
- Average altitude: 470 m a.s.l. up to 620 m a.s.l.
- Slope: up to 12 %
Grassland management
- No grazing
- 5 cuts per year
Structure
- Annual Work Unit: 45 AWU
- Agricultural Area : 2400 ha UAA
- Main forage area: 900 ha
- Permanent grassland: 370 ha
- Temporary grassland: 250 ha
- Silage maize: 280 ha
- Breeds: Holstein Friesian
- Stocking rate:
- Agricultural area: 0.7 LU/ha
- Forage area: 1.7 LU/ha
- Grassland area: 2.6 LU/ha
Animal performance
- 11,500 l/year/dairy animal
Why it is working
Highly motivated staff; payment in correspondence with animal performance was a good motivation to ensure high silage quality. Flexible motivated people are necessary to ensure to cut the grass the best possible time. The technical equipment has to be adopted to the size of the cultivated area
