In a feeding trial with dairy cows, we will examine the suitability of forest by-products as a substitute in situations with roughage shortage.
The 2018 drought demonstrated that roughage shortage could occur and cause serious problems in feed supply. By-products from the forest industry has a potential for replacing a part of ration roughage proportion, when it comes to covering ruminant´s structure requirement. With processing that increase digestibility, forest by-products should also be able to contribute significantly to dietary energy supply. In a feeding trial with dairy cows, we will replace a part of the ration´s silage with, respectively, native or upgraded wooden material and compare feed intake, production and digestibility. The trial is part of a larger project and we plan to perform the experiment during the early spring of 2023.
Contact Torsten Eriksson torsten.eriksson@slu.se