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Winter “feeding season” is upon us, and with that comes a list of questions related to the appropriate type of feed to select, amount to provide and frequency of feeding.
The most unique characteristic of a dairy cow is the rumen, the large fermentation vat that utilizes microbes to convert the feed she consumes into the nutrients she needs. She is able to take feedstuffs that other animals, including humans, cannot use and extract nutritive value from them to produce milk.
Earlier this year, social media lit up with concerns from consumers over the consistency of butter and the potential link to animal feed supplements containing palm byproducts.
Milk protein and fat content will vary across dairy cow breeds. While Holstein dairy cows typically have the lowest milkfat percentage due to their high milk yield, they often still produce the greatest amount of butterfat per day.
When it comes to ensuring the future success of a dairy operation, raising good replacement animals is essential. One of the most crucial steps in this process is colostrum management.
Make sure you get more than you spend. This seems like an incredibly basic principle – and, in fact, it is. Stated in a different way, it is also one of the foundational principles of profit maximization in economic theory.
Methionine (Met) has been recognized as the limiting or co-limiting amino acid for milk production for many years. More recently, there has been a lot of interest in the benefits of supplementing methionine to transition cows as well.
Having cows in good body condition at calving is essential to a successful breeding season. However, nutrition, animal management and specific nutrient supplementation during the early portion of the breeding season can alter pregnancy rates.
A general rule of thumb is: It takes 2 to 3 tons of hay to winter a beef cow. If $125 per ton and feeding for 150 days, it’s going to cost $1.70 to $2.50 per cow per day in feed expenses alone – without labor costs and machinery expenses.
