Feed is the biggest cost in dairy — commonly 60–70% of the cost of producing a litre of milk — and it's where farmers under pressure make the most damaging mistakes. The instinct when money's tight is to cut feed; but cut the wrong thing and milk falls faster than the saving, and your cost *per litre* actually rises. The goal isn't to spend less on feed — it's to get more milk from every shilling of feed. Here's how to do that.
Think cost per litre, not cost per bag This is the mental shift that changes everything. A cheaper feed that drops your milk is not cheaper — it costs you more per litre produced and per cow. Always ask: what does this feed *do to the bucket*, not just what does it cost to buy. Sometimes spending *more* on better forage or the right concentrate lowers your cost per litre.
1. Grow your own quality forage — the biggest lever Bought concentrate is expensive; home-grown forage is cheap. The single best way to cut feed cost is to make your forage do more of the work: - Grow enough good Napier and a protein legume (Desmodium, Calliandra, Lucerne) so cheap home fodder supplies most of the cow's protein and energy. Every kilo of milk that comes from your own legume-rich forage is a kilo you didn't buy concentrate for. (See "Feeding Napier grass.") - Cut forage at the right stage — young, leafy Napier delivers far more milk per kilo than tall stemmy grass. Mismanaged forage is the most expensive feed of all, because it's bulk that doesn't milk.
2. Conserve the wet-season surplus Forage is abundant and cheap in the rains and scarce and dear in the dry season — when farmers buy costly feed to cover the gap. Make silage (or hay) from the rainy-season glut and you carry cheap feed into the expensive months instead of buying your way through them.
3. Feed concentrate to yield, not by habit Don't feed every cow the same flat ration. Match concentrate to what each cow actually produces — more for high-yielders where it pays back in milk, less for low-yielders and late-lactation cows where it's just expensive maintenance. Over-feeding concentrate to a low-yielder is money walking out as manure.
4. Don't waste what you buy - Chop and present forage well so cows eat it instead of trampling and sorting it (a chaff cutter pays for itself). - Store feed properly — spoiled, mouldy, or rain-damaged feed is money thrown away, and can make cows sick. - Provide clean water and minerals — cheap inputs that unlock the value of everything else; a water-limited or mineral-short cow wastes the feed you bought.
5. Feed the cows that earn it The most expensive feed on the farm goes into cows that don't pay it back — chronically low-yielders, persistently sick or high-cell-count cows, and animals kept too long. Honest culling concentrates your feed budget on the cows that turn it into milk.
6. Watch body condition, not just the bucket Both over- and under-feeding cost money — over-fat cows get sick (vet bills + lost milk), too-thin cows under-perform. Body condition scoring (see that article) keeps feeding on target so you're not over-spending or under-feeding.
The summary Cut the cost *per litre* by making cheap home-grown forage do the heavy lifting, conserving the wet-season surplus, feeding concentrate where it pays, eliminating waste, and feeding the cows that earn it. That's how you survive a feed-price squeeze with the milk cheque intact — instead of starving the milk away to save on a feed bag.
Sources KALRO / ILRI — Cost of Milk Production in Smallholder Systems. AHDB Dairy — Feed Efficiency and Margin Over Feed. FAO — Improving Smallholder Dairy Feeding Economics.