The general dictionary definition of forage is “to go from place to place searching for things that you can eat or use,” and more specifically in animal agriculture, “food for animals, especially when taken by browsing or grazing.” By this definition, even the mechanical harvest of hay crops stretches the meaning, but certainly in modern agriculture, the idea of forage as a plant-based feed, regardless of whether it is harvested by the animal or mechanically, is pretty widely accepted.
While we can argue about the semantics of the term forage, it is interesting to think about it in terms of our goals of feeding cows. As my nutrition colleagues always remind me, while ruminants need digestible nutrients as well as a certain level of undigestible fiber for gut health, they do not specifically need forage. As we know, the nutrients needed for milk production can come from a wide variety of sources, and forages may or may not be an important aspect of that mix, depending on what part of the country or world you are trying to feed cows. With today’s knowledge of ruminant nutrition, perhaps farms should think in terms of homegrown feed ingredients rather than forages.
By dry weight, corn silage can be 50% grain or more. Call it a forage, call it a combination of a forage and a grain in one package, or whatever else you may like; regardless, it can be a very powerful package of nutrients for ruminants. Though as covered in a previous Hoard’s Dairyman Intel, Perennial hay can have a place in the rotation, we do have to consider its use and impacts on our farming systems beyond its advantages to diet formulation.
Homegrown feed ingredients, including hay crops, corn silage, and grains, can all be valuable assets for making milk. However, as discussed recently concerning homegrown grains, specific homegrown feeds are not always advantageous to a farm. Corn silage is a great feed ingredient, but even in areas such as the Northeast, where homegrown forages dominate, it is not always an economic crop to produce, depending on soil types and other farm resources. Alfalfa can bring value to the diet, but it is generally not well suited for farms with marginal soil drainage. Conversely, the deep taproot of alfalfa can offer advantages over grass on a farm with excessively well-drained (droughty) soils. Annual forage mixes or “cocktails” have been a popular talking point in recent years, and while they can be expensive and complicated to manage, there are scenarios where they may benefit a dairy's feeding program if other homegrown feeds are not viable.
As we look ahead to the environmental, economic, and societal expectations for milk production, continuously re-evaluating the best available ingredients and feeding strategies with your farm team is more relevant than ever. While there are certainly logical trends within geographic regions for what ingredients produce the most efficient dairy cow ration, the reality is that individual farm resources have a significant impact on what feed ingredients provide the best outcomes, regardless of what name we use for them.
