What a year!

What a year it has been so far. From a growth and productivity perspective, it never really got going, and even a turnaround now will not make up for losing the best part of it. Poor temperatures, and in some cases poor moisture levels, meant that we never got close to our potential growth rates. As a result, we are struggling to meet supplies of grass for grazing, and silage, and milk yield has suffered.
What has been, has been. We can dwell on the past, or we can move forward and plan ahead. The latter is preferable. A plethora of surveys have shown that we are short on feed for the winter and a lot of us have done little about it. Over the coming months, demand will outstrip supply and that will lead to scarcity and increased expense. Now is the time to act.  

So, first and foremost, complete your feed budget, detailing the supply of feed you have, or will have. Then, do a quick tally on the number of animals you will have over the winter. The forage-requirement chart (above) will detail what you need (remember, there is an autumn and spring requirement, and you must account for any issue that could crop up again next spring). Only now will you know what you are dealing with. If you are short <100 tonnes of feed, then a combination of animal adjustments, straw and concentrates can go a long way to make up a shortfall. If the shortfall is >100 tonnes, then you need to look at getting additional forage.
It is important to remember that, while replacing absent silage with more grass silage is the most logical step, the possibility of using an alternative like maize, whole crop, beet or possibly a moist feed should not be ruled out. While not the norm, these aternatives can have several benefits such as better levels of energy in the form of starch and sugar, which will have direct benefits to milk and protein yield, and they can be cheaper on a per-tonne basis. Furthermore, when their energy value is taken into account, they could be considerably cheaper. Other considerations when purchasing feed include: animal type; dry or milking over winter; finishing animals; or getting them to grass in early spring. Location in the country is always a factor and you should try to avoid transporting low dry matter (DM) feeds over long distances, eg. 30 tonnes of beet is just six tonnes of DM.
There are options available if you are short on feed. It is important to utilise the expertise that is out there from nutritionists, feed reps or advisors to make the best decision for your farm.