Can someone provide me the Actual Cost of cultivating Green Fodder as per present day labour conditions. (Per Kg cost for each variety)
In one similar site it was mentioned that it is costing Cereal Fodder @ 1.30, Legume @ 0.60 & Green Fodder at 3.00 per Kg to cultivate at a farm under a KVK.
Will the figures be more or less same even when cultivated by others. Say, in a case where the farm is set up by an entrepreneur and gets the fodder cultivated and harvested with the help of labour & machinery.
A detailed information crop wise will be more helpful.
Can someone provide me the Actual Cost of cultivating Green Fodder as per present day labour conditions. (Per Kg cost for each variety)
In one similar site it was mentioned that it is costing Cereal Fodder @ 1.30, Legume @ 0.60 & Green Fodder at 3.00 per Kg to cultivate at a farm under a KVK.
Will the figures be more or less same even when cultivated by others. Say, in a case where the farm is set up by an entrepreneur and gets the fodder cultivated and harvested with the help of labour & machinery.
A detailed information crop wise will be more helpful.
Regards,
Prakash.
[/quote] More or less of the same if fodder crop alone is cultivated.
Dear Mr. Swamy, I would like whether there are any experiments conducted any where with intercultivation of napier grass and sesbania species. The idea is to have a mix of fodder legume and grass in the same farm. I am in the process of developing a dairy farm and wondering whether this is possible if so with what result.
Siva Sankara Reddy.
The Cows need 2/3 mix of Monocot grass fodder and 1/3 mix of dicot-legume fodder.
whether you grow them separately or inter cultivation is your choice. Natural farmers do intercultivation as
the legume grass gives nitrogen to the monocot grass beside it and overall grass production is increased.
the cultivation costs for different fodders crops are almost the same. due to different yields per acre of each variety, the unit cost per kg of the fodder will be different.
i have just planted my first fodder crops, so, i can post the unit costs at a later date.
All above calculations are seems to be perfect…
For 2kg Green fodder you can avoide 1 kg of concentrated food. Which cost you min 14 rs per kg. Water / land are main criteria in this GF.
Basic mistake which people make when considering cost is they take pricing as a whole. You need to understand that different feeds have different amounts of water content. When water is removed, what is left is called dry matter (DM). The cow utilises DM and not water.
So for example
Napier - DM = 20% which means that when you feed 10 kg napier, cow is getting only 2 kg DM.
Maize - DM = 35%.
Dry straw - DM = 90%.
Concentrate ingredients - DM=90%.
So costing should be done by comparing the items at the same level. Rs. 14/ kg for concentrates is for 90% DM whereas Rs. 3 or Rs. 4 for green fodder is for 20-30% DM. So if you wish to bring it to same level, then the green fodder will cost Rs. 9/kg.(3 times compensating for water). This is not accounting protien. Concentrates give 20% protien with highest DM, whereas if you wish to achieve the same protien from green fodder, you will have to feed huge quantities.
Napier - 5-7% CP
Maize - 10-12% CP. So at least double quantity.
Some costing information, not perfect.
*Legume such as lucerne, subabul etc. - At least Rs. 6 / kg
*Grasses -
*Napier - I dont recommend at all due to major fault with this fodder. Causes calcium defieciency, no guarantee on yield and Dm is very low( as explained below), difficult to harvest. Anyone wonders why this is not used in USA, Europe or Australia but rather only in third world countries?
*Maize - Best fodder - Rs. 2 / kg. You may think yield is less, but my experience is yield on DM basis is same or more than Napier. And protein is more.
*Silage from Maize - Rs. 3 / kg.
*Dry fodder - Rs. 5 / kg is fair price.[/ul]
I know its very technical, but dairy farming is very technical. you have to take it from scientific and technical point of view if you have to save money and at the same time keep cows healthy.
Normal non-milking HF cow weighing around 500 kgs requires 10 kg DM which should be divided between green fodder, dry fodder and concentrates. And then you have to add for milking ration. My view is HF cow 500 kgs giving 20 lts milk needs 16 kg DM.
So divide based on that.
Example
1/3 green fodder - 5kg DM - 20 kgs maize fodder or 25 kg napier.
1/3 dry fodder - 5 kg DM - 6 kg dry fodder
1/3 concentrates - 5 kg DM - 6 kg concentrates, but make sure that the concentrates are rich in protien by using more oil cakes or soya products since you need to compensate protein which is not enough is the fodder and that too in limited ration.
If you plan to use dicod or fodder trees, then remember that fodder also has only 20% DM. Which means costing should be based on that and max quantity that can be fed is only 4 kg /cow or you risk bloat cases.
You can alter the above proprtions to reduce costs by adjusting quantities of grass and concentrates.
All this is based on my last 2 years experience and referring books which sadly no one refers, not even our wonderful veternerians. They should be responsible for spreading this kind of information.
What would be an ideal inter crop for CO3 grass ,to be grown in a land having very low nitrogen content and on which earlier there was rubber and even prior to that used to be paddy land? We are putting red cow pea in the gaps. Any other ones?