Safesil Cures 'Farmer's Blindness'


Milking 200 Friesian/Holstein cows with another 220 followers, dairying is John Sprackman’s and his family’s livelihood.


Safesil Cures 'Farmer's Blindness'

Milking 200 Friesian/Holstein cows with another 220 followers, dairying is John Sprackman’s and his family’s livelihood. John, his father Don, and brother Stephen, aim to achieve maximum returns for the farming efforts required to run Pound House Farm, Thornbury, efficiently.

They farm 600 acres, split between 120 acres of maize, 150 acres of wheat and rape, with the remainder in grass leys. John’s passion is to make Pound House Farm pay its way!

"Safesil is certainly my recipe for success. My 200 Friesian Holsteins are looking healthier, eating better and yields are improved."
John Sprackman - Pound House Farm, Thornbury

Farmer Blindness

For years John had followed traditional silaging methods to make the herd’s feed. Inclement weather over a number of years had encouraged John to house the herd year round in order to maximise grass yields and concentrate on producing high quality, home-grown forage. Unfortunately his best efforts weren’t good enough. Heavy cropping grass was cut early and regularly throughout the season, and a popular biological silage additive applied.

Great care was taken to consolidate and sheet the clamp correctly. However, every time the clamp was opened up for feeding the top and side layers of silage were black and mouldy.

John and his herdsman, Neil Bishop, became increasingly disappointed at the crop wastage, as well as the effect the poor quality silage was having on his milking cows. Advice given covered weather conditions, climate, grass and harvesting, but no-one offered a positive solution as how best to improve his forage. “I call it ‘Farmer’s Blindness’,” says John. “Everyone’s advice relied on making silage in the same way, using the same silage additive as ‘that’s the way it is always made’. We compared our cows’ performance, feeding earlier cut silage, later cuts, young cuts and more mature cuts. Whatever we did we couldn’t achieve our target of 14kg of silage DM intake, 11kg DM intake being the best we could hope for. This meant, of course, that our concentrate costs were rising. We had cow health and fertility issues, and our vet was becoming a too regular visitor to the farm. We were trying everything to improve our cows’ health and yields. I was at my wits end.”

Safesil

“And then EUREKA! We tried something new – Safesil silage preservative.”

Following a meeting with Kelvin Cave, the UK distributor for Safesil, they decided to use the product. This new approach to protecting silage uses only human food-grade preservatives that are extremely effective in killing the harmful bacteria, yeasts and moulds that cause high DM losses during silage fermentation and feedout. John was determined to see his way clear of the ‘Farmer’s Blindness’ syndrome and not only needed to improve his herd’s health but his own peace of mind, which was being affected by his cows’ poor performance.

Safesil was ordered and applied for the spring harvest, with the first cut silage being fed a few weeks after being made.

The Results

John is happy to report the hugely pleasurable experience of pulling back the clamp sheet and finding good, green silage, and no waste! The second benefit was also almost immediate, with the cows increasing silage intake to the 14kg DM minimum required within days of its introduction into the diet.

Safesil works in two ways. Firstly, it destroys the enterobacteria and clostridia that are present on the grass in high numbers. These undesirable bacteria can break down large amounts of valuable sugars and protein, producing butyric acid, ammonia and CO2 as their main fermentation products. Their elimination as competitors allows the good lactic acid bacteria to drop the silage pH to around 4, fermenting less sugar and producing less lactic acid than would be the case if no additive or a typical inoculant were used.

Secondly, Safesil eliminates the yeasts and moulds that cause aerobic deterioration and heating when the silage is exposed to air. It is these elements that lower the nutritional value and palatability of silage, and it was this that was having the detrimental effect on John’s previous silage.

By September the herd had had four months of being fed the better quality silage and had turned the corner to full recovery. The cows were eating better and looking healthier, with calving and bulling performance noticeably improved. John comments, “My herd now looks healthy and happy. Milk average is 10,700 litres with excellent butter fat results and my vet visits are proactive not reactive. I’m happy.”

“Safesil is certainly my recipe for success.”
 

Case Study from Safesil, Kelvin Cave Ltd.


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