Improving cow yields from forage wasn't the only reason for adopting an earlier cutting date. Colin had also been speaking to ForFarmer's Dave Hunt about increasing milk protein levels.
"With constituents playing an increasing role in milk price, we felt that driving protein levels up was a priority," says Mr Hunt. "High quality forages help to drive protein and the changes Colin has made have helped to push them up to an average of 3.25%. The Luthers have also looked carefully at the way they feed the cows and how that could be improved."
The family makes full use of ForFarmers' support services, including full costing, Diet Plan, Visiolac, Insight and Dry NIR Forage Analysis. They use the fortnightly Grass Bulletin during the grazing season, as well as carrying out soil nutrient and fertiliser planning with help from ForFarmers' forage specialists.
The cows are fed a simple diet. Concentrate in the parlour and through out-of-parlour feeders, and grass and maize silage along the feed barrier. During the summer, cows are buffer fed before the evening milking. Out-of-parlour feeders were introduced because the amount of concentrate fed to high-yielding cows in the parlour was causing digestive problems.
"We invested in out-of-parlour feeders and a collar system 10 years ago," explains Colin. "And cows are now fed 3kg of concentrate in the parlour in two feeds and receive the rest, according to yield, in the out-of-parlour feeders."
"We found that we haven't seen as many digestive disorder problems and cows seem much more relaxed and yields have increased while feeding the same amount of concentrate. When cows are out to grass, between March and September, they still have access to the out-of-parlour feeders and we see them begin to drift back in an hour or so before milking to use them."