Feeding for margin: Practical feed and forage decisions

Milk profitability series | Webinar 2 of 5

When milk prices are under pressure, feed is often the first area to be reviewed. But cutting costs without a clear strategy can risk herd health, fertility and long-term performance.

This practical webinar focuses on feeding for margin, helping you reduce cost per litre while protecting the performance of your herd and replacements.

You’ll understand what the milk-to-feed price ratio is signalling and how it should shape feeding decisions, alongside reviewing purchased feed use to distinguish between waste and strategic investment. The session will cover forage testing, silage quality, improving utilisation, reducing reliance on bought-in feed and comparing the cost of a housed versus grazed litre, including early turnout planning.

We will also discuss managing grass and ration changes without compromising fertility or transition performance, helping you avoid short-term cuts that create long-term losses. You’ll hear from James Hague, Dairy Club, sharing practical, real-world insights to support confident, margin-focused decisions.

What the webinar will give you:

• Greater clarity on where feed costs can be safely adjusted
• Improved understanding of feeding for margin rather than volume
• Practical steps to improve forage utilisation and system efficiency
• Confidence to make ration and grazing decisions without compromising long-term herd performance

We’ll also highlight practical tools and support available via AHDB, including the Milk Price Support Hub, Milk Price Calculator and wider business resilience resources.

If you’re a dairy farmer or herd manager, don’t miss your chance to learn about reviewing your feed and forage strategy during a sustained period of lower milk prices.

This webinar is part of a five-part series focused on milk prices, designed to give dairy farmers practical tools and resources to manage their business with confidence.

James Hague Bio

James is the founder and Managing Director of AgriSoft Ltd producing software systems for the agricultural industry. He also runs Dairy Club which provides a range of tools and views on dairying.

Originally from a farming family in Yorkshire, James’s career took him into research, firstly at ADAS Bridgets, working on projects like Feed Into Milk, to then spending eight years at Kingshay as Technical Director.

Following a period of farming, James and his young family moved to New Zealand where he spent 10 years as an independent consultant. His consultancy specialised in working with farmers across New Zealand and Australia, redesigning whole farm systems and training farmers in ruminant nutrition.

Whilst in New Zealand James developed his main dairy software tool ‘Tracker’ which predicts, monitors and challenges the dairy system. Tracker is currently in use in a number of countries across the globe, with around 650,000 cows on the system.