Valuing Supplementary Feed

It is important to be able to compare the true value of a range of purchased in feeds such as cereal grains and pulses against other feeds such as crops grown at home, or purchased in feeds including PKE, hay, silage and baleage.

Feeds can be valued in at least four different ways:

1. Wet weight or as-fed basis.
2. Dry matter (DM) basis.
3. Megajoules of metabolisable energy (MJME) basis.
4. The true nutritional value of a feed (e.g. comparing on a starch, protein water soluble carbohydrate and fibre basis).

Determining the value of a feed on a true nutrition basis can be detailed and is generally done using diet formulation software. However it is not that difficult to calculate the true cost of a feed on a DM and MJME basis in the field.