Farmer decision-making and risk perceptions towards outwintering cattle

Barnes, Andrew P.; McCalman, Heather; Buckingham, Sarah; Thomson, Steven

doi:10.1016/j.jenvman.2013.05.026

Cited by 17 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 50 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Dairy heifers adapt well to cold outdoor conditions if provided with shelter and a dry lying (Redbo et al, 2001), and out-wintering mature cattle on forage crops can achieve similar levels of animal performance to housing (Keogh et al, 2009). Out-wintering systems in Great Britain are farmer-led innovations (Barnes et al, 2013), therefore a survey of these farmers was conducted to assess current practice with a view to informing dairy farmers who are considering employing this system of heifer rearing.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Summaries

2014

Advances in Animal Biosciences

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Embracing new alternative feed ingredients in feed formulation is an essential component of future sustainable intensification of feed production. Furthermore identification of alternative raw materials is a means of increasing resilience in the supply chain in the face of increased risk due to the pending unreliability of climate. Appreciating the gap between the identification of an alternative raw material and the approval of this material in a commercial raw material data matrix is imperative to a successful adoption of the new product. In this presentation the presumption is made that any new raw material is listed in a national list of permitted raw materials. It is not the intention to review regulatory issues. Unfortunately however it does not follow that a material listed for use in feed in a national list is then used routinely in feed formulation. How a raw material is used can be viewed in terms of either animal factors and/or logistic and commercial factors. The presence of anti-nutritional factors can have a significant impact on how a new raw material is utilised. Independently it can influence the species of animal, the age and stage of growth of an animal and the quantity of material used in the formulation. Furthermore traditional nutrient components such as phytate and fibre are now recognised as antinutritional factors in for example poultry and aqua nutrition respectively. Means of eliminating or negating the impact of anti-nutritional factors is an important aspect of developing an alternative raw material. Least cost ration formulation techniques have been developed to design diets that meet specific requirements from readily available ingredients at the lowest cost. Invariably a new ingredient will only be used in a diet formulation as long as it will reduce the cost of the diet unless the ingredient can provide additional benefits not taken into account in the least cost formulation. This would be the case when a product delivers health benefits in addition to its nutrient specification. A new raw material may satisfy all major nutrient requirements but in addition a number of logistic issues require to be fulfilled. The product must be produced in a quantity to support a supply chain and to be incorporated in one or a number of feed formulations to merit a feed mill allocating space in the mill for storage. Finally the benefit of using the new alternative feed material must create sufficient value to be attractive to the producer of the product, all the active members in the supply chain and finally the livestock producer who will use the product. Biorefineries processing large quantities of grain for biofuels are prime examples of processes capable of producing novel raw materials. Currently the biorefinery process tends to produce a single medium protein, high fibre co-product, distillers dried grains and solubles (DDGS). It is questionable whether this process is viable when large quantities of energy are required to dry the product for feeding to ruminants, the segment of livestock ...

show abstract

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Summaries

2014

Advances in Animal Biosciences

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Out‐wintering is the practice of rearing cattle outside through the winter months on a purpose built out‐wintering pad, on a “sacrifice” field, or grazing forage in situ (Barnes, McCalman, Buckingham, & Thomson, ). The in situ systems commonly use autumn stockpiled pasture (deferred stocking), or a forage crop grown specifically for winter grazing, and usually include grass silage supplementation (Barnes et al., ). Currently, the most popular forages used for out‐wintering pregnant heifers within the United Kingdom (UK) are deferred stocking, forage kale or fodder beet, with on average 34% of dry‐matter intake (DMI) provided as baled grass silage (Atkins, Walley, Bleach, & Sinclair, ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Indeed, farmers that out‐winter replacement heifers in the UK generally have a herd size well above average, and the major reason farmers out‐winter cattle is reported to be to reduce the cost of rearing (Atkins et al., ). Improving animal health and welfare is also reported to be a major reason for out‐winter replacement heifers (Atkins et al., ; Barnes et al., ), although winter weather and soil conditions potentially increase the risk to animal health, welfare and performance (Barnes et al., ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Periparturient and early lactation performance and metabolism of replacement Holstein‐Friesian heifers out‐wintered on fodder beet or perennial ryegrass compared with winter housing

Atkins

Bleach

Sinclair

2018

Grass and Forage Science

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The effect of winter feeding system on the periparturient performance and early milk production and metabolism of pregnant Holstein‐Friesian dairy heifers destined for a high‐output, total mixed ration (TMR)‐based system was examined. Forty‐eight, 23 ± 0.4‐month‐old, in‐calf Holstein‐Friesian heifers were assigned to one of three treatments: out‐wintered on perennial ryegrass and grass silage (G), out‐wintered on fodder beet and grass silage (F) or housed and fed grass silage and concentrate (H). The study commenced in November 2013, with heifers on treatment for 91 days, housed from 6 weeks prior to parturition and fed a dry cow TMR. Postpartum performance and metabolism were monitored for 12 weeks. Prepartum, average daily gain was lower in heifers receiving G at 0.95 kg d−1 cow−1 than F or H (1.24 and 1.11 kg d−1 cow−1 respectively). Body condition score of heifers that received G was also lower compared with treatments F or H both pre‐ and postpartum. Prepartum, plasma β‐hydroxybutyrate concentrations were lowest in animals receiving treatment H, highest in F and intermediate in G, but did not differ between treatment postpartum. Milk yield averaged 30.7 kg d−1 cow−1 and was not affected by treatment, but milk fat content was lowest in animals that received F (35.4, 37.1 and 37.9 g/kg for F, G and H respectively). The results indicate that out‐wintering in‐calf dairy heifers on fodder beet or perennial ryegrass is a viable alternative to winter housing in high‐output TMR‐based milk production systems in a temperate region.

show abstract

“…Survey approaches to understand the motives behind farmer decision making have been used to inform strategies to improve farm performance in a variety of areas (i.e. Barnes et al, 2013;Martin-Collado et al, 2015). Finally, it is increasingly acknowledged that the consideration of farmer views and preferences is critical to increasing the uptake of breeding tools (Duguma et al, 2011;Nielsen et al, 2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Farmer views on calving difficulty consequences on dairy and beef farms

Martín-Collado¹,

Hely²,

Byrne³

et al. 2017

Animal

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Calving difficulty (CD) is a key functional trait with significant influence on herd profitability and animal welfare. Breeding plays an important role in managing CD both at farm and industry level. An alternative to the economic value approach to determine the CD penalty is to complement the economic models with the analysis of farmer perceived on-farm impacts of CD. The aim of this study was to explore dairy and beef farmer views and perceptions on the economic and non-economic on-farm consequences of CD, to ultimately inform future genetic selection tools for the beef and dairy industries in Ireland. A standardised quantitative online survey was released to all farmers with e-mail addresses on the Irish Cattle Breeding Federation database. In total, 271 farmers completed the survey (173 beef farmers and 98 dairy farmers). Both dairy and beef farmers considered CD a very important issue with economic and non-economic components. However, CD was seen as more problematic by dairy farmers, who mostly preferred to slightly reduce its incidence, than by beef farmers, who tended to support increases in calf value even though it would imply a slight increase in CD incidence. Farm size was found to be related to dairy farmer views of CD with farmers from larger farms considering CD as more problematic than farmers from smaller farms. CD breeding value was reported to be critical for selecting beef sires to mate with either beef or dairy cows, whereas when selecting dairy sires, CD had lower importance than breeding values for other traits. There was considerable variability in the importance farmers give to CD breeding values that could not be explained by the farm type or the type of sire used, which might be related to the farmer non-economic motives. Farmer perceived economic value associated with incremental increases in CD increases substantially as the CD level considered increases. This non-linear relationship cannot be reflected in a standard linear index weighting. The results of this paper provide key underpinning support to the development of non-linear index weightings for CD in Irish national indexes.

show abstract

Farmer decision-making and risk perceptions towards outwintering cattle

Cited by 17 publications

References 50 publications

Summaries

Summaries

Periparturient and early lactation performance and metabolism of replacement Holstein‐Friesian heifers out‐wintered on fodder beet or perennial ryegrass compared with winter housing

Farmer views on calving difficulty consequences on dairy and beef farms

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About