Effects on milk production of feeding silage and three levels of sugar‐beet pulp either as a mixed ration or as an ensiled blend

Abstract Twenty‐one British Friesian dairy cows, in mid‐lactation, were used in a seven‐treatment, partially balanced change‐over design experiment consisting of three periods each of 4 weeks' duration. Treatments involved offering grass silage either without a sugar‐beet pulp (beet pulp) supplement (US) or supplemented with beet pulp at silage/beet pulp dry matter ratios of 80:20 (C40), 65:35 (C80) and 55:45 (C120), and offered in the form of a mixed ration. A further three treatments consisted of offering ensiled blends of silage and beet pulp, produced by mixing 40 (E40), 80 (E80) and 120 (E120)kg beet pulp t−1 of grass at ensiling. Silage was offered ad libitum on all treatments, with cows receiving 1kg d−1 of a concentrate supplement containing 470 g crude protein kg−1 fresh weight. Dry matter intakes increased with increasing level of beet pulp inclusion in the diet, irrespective of method of beet pulp inclusion in the diet. Similarly, milk fat + protein yields increased with increasing level of beet pulp offered. However, when comparisons were made between the two methods of beet pulp inclusion in the diet with beet pulp requirements equivalent to those obtained in treatments C40, C80 and C120, namely 2·28, 4·53 and 6·21 kg d−1, offering beet pulp as a supplement to an untreated silage resulted in fat + protein yields of 32 (s.e.d. 9·8), 53 (s.e.d. 19·5) and 81 (s.e.d. 21·3)gd−1 greater than would have been achieved had equivalent quantities of beet pulp been included at ensiling as part of an ensiled blend. This effect can be attributed to the higher metabolizable energy intakes with the control silage supplemented with beet pulp at feeding, a consequence of the loss of nutrients from the beet pulp fraction during ensiling, in the case of treatments E40, E80 and E120. However, when account is taken of differences in the efficiency of recovery of edible silage dry matter between ensilage systems and differences in forage dry‐matter intake between treatments, overall efficiency of feed use was not significantly different between the two systems of beet pulp inclusion in the diet.