ALPRO™ – Feeding
Whatever your feeding strategy, ALPRO makes it possible for each cow to receive the appropriate ration for her lactation stage and milk production. ALPRO helps you maximize milk yield and reduce feed costs, labour costs and waste.
Individual feeding maximises yield
Feed represents around 50% of milk production costs, so saving on feed costs while producing more milk should improve your profit margin. The ALPRO feeding system works by monitoring each cow, or group of cows, and adjusting the quantity and type of feed according to milk production. It also feeds small concentrate portions regularly throughout the day. Both strategies maximize nutritional intake and use feed to increase yield – improving feed efficiency. ALPRO measures individual milk yield on a daily basis to show how different feed compositions given at different stages in the lactation cycle affect the amount of milk each cow produces.
Frequent feeding for health
As well as maximizing milk yield, there are many health benefits associated with small, frequent meals. Because food uptake is optimized, the rumen pH remains more stable. This reduces potential metabolic issues and improves body condition score and reproductive performance, avoiding the health issues associated with overweight cows at calving.
In-parlour feeding
Dispensing individual rations in the parlour is a good way to use the milking time to make individual feed adjustments, particularly if you are a grassland farmer; or to encourage cows to enter rotary milking systems. The brief time available to eat the feed concentrate while being milked means feed allocation has to be optimized. The in-parlour feeding systems provide for using different feed tables according to the stage of lactation, or the level of milk production. High energy concentrate can be dispensed to high yielding cows, while body condition for cows at the end of lactation can be controlled by reduced rations.
Calves thrive on automated feeding
Your calves need special care to stay healthy and grow into highyielding cows. Tag your calves with a transponder from day one and you can feed them to maximise their potential – and your future profits.
Good rumen development
Good reasons to feed concentrate at an early stage:
- to reduce feed costs, if you are using expensive milk replacer;
- to promote rumen development.
Health problems can be spotted earlier as calves will reduce concentrate intake long before their milk consumption drops. Concentrate stations connected to the calf feeder deliver concentrate in small regulated portions – and the ALPRO system records precisely how much each calf eats. The feed station stimulates concentrate intake by dispensing fresh feed at natural eating speed – and very little is wasted.
Automated weaning
Concentrate intake is the main parameter in deciding when to wean a calf. ALPRO identifies the right time, and weaning happens at a gentle pace. If, for some reason, a calf doesn’t eat or drink, ALPRO will let you know.
