Feed costs are the largest contributor to total costs on a farm, so identifying opportunities to optimize feed ingredients without sacrificing nutrition to the cow should garner appropriate attention. However, very few resources are available to help us check and predict feed variability.

One opportunity producers and nutritionists can leverage today is to improve feed efficiency through precise forage management and strategic nutritional technologies. By making thoughtful small changes like optimizing forage use and incorporating intelligent feed solutions, dairy operations can stretch existing feed supplies further without compromising milk production or herd health.

New mycotoxin species emerge every year and spread rapidly to affect livestock. Protecting cows from these pathogenic pressures is important to protect cow health and maintain a productive herd. Gut health has never been more important, which adds to the critical nature of a mycotoxin mitigation strategy.

Silage can be difficult to introduce into an animal’s diet, but once it is established, moving from one crop to the next produces a new set of challenges. When changing types of silage, or from crop to crop, here are some things to consider.

Just as feed handling and management has evolved greatly over the last 50 years, the same will be true about data management as we move into the future. Identifying all of the data silos on farms and working to integrate them into a singular dataset will empower dairies to make more informed decisions that yield more substantial results quicker.

High-performing dairy cattle can be likened to high-performing athletes, and their ability to perform to their full potential is also tied to their routine’s consistency. From milking to feeding, our steadiness on the farm is an important part of herd success.

Several of the ingredients we consider as “byproducts” or “coproducts” do have quite a bit of variability. Wet brewers grains, corn gluten feed and soyhulls have elevated standard deviations for all nutrients.