Einsatz von Nebenprodukten in der biologischen Milchviehfütterung zur Verbesserung der Lebensmittelkonversionseffizienz

Summary

Dairy cows are very efficient in converting fibrous forages into nutritious foods for humans. However, when fed potentially human-edible feeds, such as grains and pulses, dairy cows show very low efficiency in terms of net food production. In this debate, by-products are often mentioned as high quality feeds with reduced human-edible fractions for dairy cows. The aim of this feeding trial was therefore to evaluate the effect of a full substitution of a common concentrate mixture (COM) with a mixture including solely industrial by-products (BP) on milk production, feed intake, and the edible feed conversion ratio (eFCR) in organic dairy production. Cows receiving the BP mixture showed higher intakes of fibre fractions and ether extract, while starch intake was reduced as compared to cows receiving the COM mixture. The substitution did not impair feed intake or affect cows´ live weight changes. Milk yield and milk solids were not affected by treatment. However, the eFCR, defined as human-edible output per human-edible input, in the BP-group were about 4 and 2.7 times higher for energy and protein, respectively. In conclusion, this study showed that by-products were adequate substitutes for common concentrates and could greatly improve eFCR.