Utfodring av rapsfoderråvara i fodersystem till mjölkkor

Abstract: The feed is a major cost in the dairy production and there is a constant interest in findingalternative cost-effective feedstuffs. Competitive dairy producers have to seek ways todecrease their production costs and the pursuit of cost-effective feed rations contributesto lower costs of production. An interesting group of protein concentrates are rapeseedproducts like ExPro (heat treated rapeseed) which have during the autumn 2008 andspring 2009 been very favourable compared to other protein feeds.This study focuses on the feedstuff products ExPro and Raps-Drank 60/40 (rapeseeddistillersgrain). The potential use of ExPro in dairy cow feed rations are also explored.ExPro is a well known feedstuff but Raps-Drank 60/40 is a relatively new product andnot known for many farmers.A field study on the use of rapeseed products was made on a limited number of dairyfarms. The main purpose was to study the management of the feedstuffs on the farms.The Farms were selected in cooperation with two local extension services. Selectioncriteria were geographic location in southern Sweden, herd size of 80-200 dairy cowsand that they used ExPro in the feed ration.Of the 10 farms which were selected, 2 of them actually used Raps-Drank 60/40 as theirrapeseed feed, but they were included in the study despite not fulfilling the originalcriteria. The farms were visited and the farmers were interviewed by using a prepreparedquestion form. An overview of the farms use of the feed products was done.The detailed results of each interview are shown in the results section.Detailed feed ration calculations were made on four selected farms and how each feedwas managed. No technical or hygienic problems with usage ExPro and Raps-Drank inmix feed were reported. Feed ration optimization revealed different outcomes. Theoutcome from the interview shows that ExPro was favour compared to soyabean meal.The hope of this study was to increase the interest for Swedish feed products in the feedrations on the dairy farms. Even if the study was relatively small, with only a few farmsincluded the results show that it can be economical to feed dairy cows with ExProcompared to soybean meal.