XtraBlatt Issue 01-2023

THE ALBRING FAMILY
The Fresh
Delighted dairy
farmers (back row,
from left to right):
André and Monique
Albring with their
children Dieke and
Tessa and (front) Jesse
and Sanne.
Grass Express
The icing on the cake
for the 480 cows on the
Albring farm is the fresh
grass. In the summer
months, the Fresh Grass
Express comes past
once a day to deliver
around 40kg of fresh
grass per cow per day
in addition to the (then
slightly reduced) total
mixed ration.
Feeding fresh grass to cows housed in cubicle houses –
known as cut-and-carry feeding – is rare in Germany, which
is mainly due to the workload. XtraBlatt visited the Albring
Farm in the village of Ihorst in Lower Saxony to find out
how the family has managed to do this efficiently, saving a
great deal of concentrate and making their 480 dairy cows
very happy in the process.
T
en thirty in the morning in Germany...is
not just time to tuck into a famous brand
of nougat waffle, if the adverts are to be
believed. In the Albring family’s cubicle
house in the North German village of Ihorst, not
far from the Dutch border, 480 cows eagerly await
the daily Fresh Grass Express. And the train is
bang on time – or to be more precise, the tractor,
front-mounted mower and forage wagon complete
with weighing system and feeding belt that feeds
out the fresh grass on top of the total mixed ration
(TMR) that has already been laid down in the feed
passage. Fresh grass is just as appealing to cows as
a snack from a food van is for many people: a treat
that also happens to taste delicious. “You can tell
how much they like it by the fact that it disappears
so quickly,” he explains with a wink.
The right equipment
But why does André Albring and his wife Monique,
who bought the farm together 23 years ago, insist
on this comparatively labour-intensive feed
regime? “Firstly, we can make better use of our
grassland, and secondly the protein in the fresh
grass replaces a considerable amount of soya in the
ration during the summer months. This increases
the contribution margin per cow – which is ultimately
the most important aspect,” he explains.
And he doesn’t regard the additional workload
that comes with feeding fresh grass as a serious
problem – provided he has the right equipment.
This is what prompted André Albring to invest
in a new forage wagon with a 40m³ capacity in
2022. The generous volume means that he or one
of his staff has to make only one or at most two
trips a day to harvest the grass. He opted for an
RX 400 GD from Krone – not just because the
wagon appealed to him, but because the manufacturer
from Emsland was the only one at the time
who could also supply the additional feeding belt
in good time.
Krone also hit the spot when it came to the front
mower. “I wanted a working width of 4m instead
of 3m. It reduces the number of overlaps, which is
important on our peaty soils, especially in wetter
years. In addition, the wider width means that the
forage wagon is filled about 30% faster – and time
is money for a farm our size,” explains the farmer.
However, he hit a slight snag: Krone did have a 4m
wide folding front mower in its range – but none
with the cross-feed auger that André Albring was
so keen on.
46 1|2023 XtraBlatt
XtraBlatt 1|2023
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