Winter silage shortages continue to be cause for concern, with beef and dairy farmers are being encouraged to prioritise forage budgets. Producers facing challenges with fodder quality are encouraged to feed their best quality forage to the animals who need it most in the months ahead following the dry growing season across much of country.
Provisional data from the Met Office confirmed summer 2025 was the warmest on record. The UK had a mean temperature of 16.1°C between 1 June and 31 August – some 1.51°C above the earlier record.
Budgeting tool
“Some farms have plenty of good quality forage, while many farms are going to be seriously short this year,” says Jimmy Goldie, chief technical officer at Carr’s Billington. Mr Goldie recommends utilising a forage budgeting tool to estimate daily feed-out rates to help work out forage stocks and requirements. Farmers should measure up silage clamps and count bales – and analyse forage to assess quality.
“It’s important to start planning now,” says Mr Goldie. “It’s a lot easier to make a small adjustment now to ensure you get through the winter, rather than reaching February and realising you’ve run out of feed.”
Once forage stocks have been counted and analysed, Mr Goldie says farmers need to compare this to the number of livestock on the farm – and adapt plans if necessary.
Beef and dairy
Farmers who finish beef calves may choose to take advantage of higher store cattle prices and sell them early or feed them a bit harder and finish them quicker, so they’re not on the farm as long and don’t need as much forage.
Feeding high barley diets to finish cattle quicker may also be an attractive option to reduce reliance on forage. The on-farm price of barley is reasonably low due to many crops not meeting malting specifications this year.
But Mr Goldie added a note of caution: “High barley diets put cattle at risk of acidosis so take care to balance the diet to ensure optimal rumen function and the best feed conversion possible.”
The recent milk price drop means dairy farmers should check again to ensure buying in concentrates to make up energy shortfalls is cost-effective – although farmers need diets must be balanced to match milk quality requirements.
Body condition
In all instances, though, Mr Goldie says farmers should ensure their best quality forage is given to the animals who need it the most – including in-calf suckler cows, transition dairy cows and milking cows.
“Assess the body condition of spring-calving suckler cows now and ensure they have sufficient energy and protein through the winter to make sure they’re sustained for calving next spring,” he explains.
He says although there is no one-size-fits-all approach to winter feeding in 2025, the key to a successful season will be careful forward planning in collaboration with nutritionists and feed advisers. “You almost need to start with a blank sheet of paper, work out what you want to achieve and what feed you’ve got available to do that. It’s important to ensure any bought-in feed is both nutritionally efficient and makes economic sense.”