A Focus on Energy Technical Data Sheet Animal barns require ventilation to keep cows and other farm animals comfortable and productive year- round. Ventilation provides fresh air, removes excess moisture and helps regulate seasonal temperature swings. The benefits are real and practical; ventilation helps farmers maintain healthy, productive animals.

The science behind building a ration that optimizes milk production and improves herd health is highly coveted. To formulate a performance-focused diet, nutritionists depend on quality feed ingredients as the basis for ration development.

Do extra vitamins help? Today there are fewer cows producing more milk. Cows have become more efficient.

Feeding straw to dry dairy cows has become a popular strategy to decrease dietary energy content and increase the bulk fill of the ration. The key reasons for doing this are to maintain pre-calving dry matter intake and to keep the rumen expanded to avoid a displaced abomasum post-calving.

It’s been snowing lately, and I have been complaining about the cold. I am not as young as I used to be, and my bones hurt.My circulation isn’t the best; our big house doesn’t have central heating, and the last batch of wood we gathered was wet. If you know anything about wet wood, it doesn’t burn very well.

You gotta feed cows in the winter in the San Luis Valley of Colorado. Liquid molasses is a common supplement.

I can’t remember the last time I heard someone say, “Boy, the weather has been almost perfect this year.” It seems like that used to happen every now and again when I was a kid.

Dairy cattle housed in freestall barns are normally separated from the feed delivery area by some sort of barrier. Barriers are important as they prevent cattle from walking and defecating on the feed.

A low-fat vegetarian diet is very efficient in terms of how much land is needed to support it. But adding some dairy products and a limited amount of meat may actually increase this efficiency, Cornell researchers suggest.

Sudangrass, forage sorghums and sorghum-sudangrass crosses (all in the genus Sorghum) contain a non-poisonous chemical called dhurrin.