High quality forage and feed efficiency through a hay crane is the driver of solids and profitability on this family farm in at Charbonnieres les sapins, France.
Three family members of the Beurtheret family are involved in the family business together and are supplying 530,000L of milk on 120ha of land.
The Beurtheret family milk 70 Montbeliarde cows on 105ha of grassland and have 15ha for crops, where they sow primarily barley and produce and keep their own straw.
The family have 130 stock altogether which includes young calves, weanlings, maiden heifers and in-calf heifers and they would have kept more in years gone by, but due to fodder shortages in recent years, they have decided to sell on more.
Feed efficiency
They have reduced the number of young stock on the farm to save on fodder supplies, as they explained that they had a very dry farm which was was unable to produce the fodder needed with the number of stock they had.
To limit the number of young stock on the farm and in order to get the number of replacements they need, the farm uses sexed semen on the best cows in the herd.
The farm has a keen focus on forage quality and built a shed for forage storage in 2001, followed by a cubicle and milking parlour shed in 2003 and a big investment in forage clamps, dryers and a hay crane in 2016.
The forage produced on the farm is based on quality, which is the key for the production of the herd, considering they are limited on forage, they can make and limited on concentrates.
Due to the focus on genetics and forage quality on the farm, the farm has went from producing 8,500kg milk solids (MS)/cow in 2022 to producing 8,800kg MS/cow in 2023 with 3.45% protein and 4.0% fat.
The average price they got for their milk last year was €700/t of milk sold, which is the equivalent to €0.70/L and is down to their high quality milk and great hygiene. The milk is collected every day to produce fresh Comté cheese.
The three farmers admitted that they are not afraid to reseed every year, as making good forage is key for the farm as they feed dry hay even in the summer months, which helps with overall solids production.
Montbeliarde
The Beurtherets said that they are looking for a cow that can produce good quality milk while having good strength, chest width and chest depth to do so.
They want a Montbeliarde that can produce forage and grazed grass to milk in an efficient manner and they do not want to compromise milk solids and that they are keen to improve solids year on year.
In terms of their heifers, they will have about 25-30 heifers coming through every year and will push them on to reach the target of calving at two-years-of-age.
However, just because she is calving down at two-years-of-age, does not mean that they push those heifers on in the first lactation and will only really push their milk production in their second lactation.
When they are breeding their replacements, they want a cow with good protein, good temperament, good milking speed, good health and good hoof health with udder quality.
All of the bull semen is bought through Coopex Montbeliarde, who also supplies bulls to the Irish market, with Neil Lahart and Bó Sires being the main supplier of Coopex Montbeliarde semen in the country.
The cows have to graze for at least six months of the year and cannot be fed any fermented feed, so dry hay or dry alfalfa is usually fed instead of silage.
The reason it has to be Montbeliarde, is because the Montbeliardes produce 80% more cheese than Holstein cows, with the same quantity of milk due to their high protein, higher levels of beta casein and kappa casein.
Cows calve all year-round, which is also essential for cheese production, as there can be no fluctuation in solids and milk produced, as the same supply is needed from one end of the year to the next.
Hay and concentrates
The farm undergoes four cuts of hay and the farmers said that the third and fourth cut are usually less quality and more fibrous.
Typically, the four cuts are mixed using the hay crane to get a grab from each clamp compartment mixing the fibrous hay with the more leafy and lush, high protein hay.
The farmers also have have a few cuts of alfalfa hay that compliments the leafy grass-clover hay that is fed on the farm.
There is a dryer underneath the hay clamps that blows air right through the hay to dry it out, in which a small amount of hay will be dried at on time when the hay cuts are initially coming in.
Once this hay is dried out, each cut is then separated into their own individual clamps to allow for feeding ease and efficiency.
The heat that is generated from the stored hay is trapped in the roof of the shed which is then stored and transferred to energy and is used to generate the energy to operate the crane and hay dryer.
The Beurtherets store their own barley on the farm and they buy in corn, soya bean meal and rape and put all of these into a machine that blends them up into a fine powder.
The blend ends up being an 18-21% protein mix, which is fed twice/day through an automatic feeder in the cubicle shed.
The cows have tags in their ear which detects how much meal they require as they enter the feeder with them generally receiving 2kg twice/day.
Freshly calved cows will receive 3kg of concentrates twice a day and in the middle of the summer, when grass is lush, the cows may only receive 2kg/day.
This year, the farm fed about 1.7t of concentrates/cow for the year which is more than usual and was put down to the poor quality hay that was made on the farm.
Overall, between the new forage shed, the silage wagon that is used to bring in the hay and the hay crane and the hay dryer, the Beurtherets have spent about €400,000 to maximise their efficiency in feeding.