The reproductive performance of a dairy herd can be affected by three nutritional issues. There can be: 1. an inadequate supply of nutrients (e.g. energy) 2. an excess supply of nutrients (e.g. protein) 3. unplanned anti-nutritional dietary components (e.g. toxins, pathogens, etc.)

Dairy cows just don’t have a choice. Due to their biology, they are unable to meet their energy needs during the transition from dry cow to fresh cow. Their body’s demand for glucose (energy) increases approximately 2.5 times from pre-calving to post-calving, with the greatest deficiency occurring one to two weeks after calving.

I remember back in the 1980s when the first TMR mixer boxes started showing up. Boy, those were something. No more pushing and dragging bales of hay around by hand – dump them into a big box with your front-end loader, add your commodities and presto, it’s all mixed up and sitting in the manger in the perfect proportion ready for Madam Milk Cow. It just about made the pitchfork obsolete.

With current economic trends in the dairy industry, the producer needs to ensure efficiency in all aspects of milk production. Controlling diseases, such as mastitis, and reproductive performance are both key areas that contribute to overall profitability. Using nutrition to increase a cow’s defense against infections and improve reproduction has recently been an important area of research.

Dairy producers are keenly aware of the importance of feed and feed management. Your choices of what and how to feed affects profitability. You know and understand the importance of feed uniformity. To get consistent performance, all producers strive to formulate a uniform mix of all the necessary nutrients, like protein and fiber, for optimum cow nutrition. What do ration balancing sub-models add to all the facts you already know?

When it comes to managing the feedbunk, who is responsible is not as important as the responsibilities that need to be done. First is the need to start with high-quality, fresh and palatable feed ingredients free from spoilage and mold. Then offer a well-balanced ration that will meet the high- producing dairy cow’s nutritional needs.

If you were lucky, the 2009 harvest caused little or no problems. But for many of you, luck just wasn’t part of the program. Hail damage or lack of moisture struck some areas during the summer. In the fall, other areas experienced harvest delays or frost hitting the corn silage. Whatever the case was, you are currently feeding your inventory of high-moisture corn or corn silage.

If you’re like most of us, you occasionally bake a frozen, self-rising pizza from the grocery store. The “self-rising” crust is made possible by an encapsulated leavening system. Now the same innovative technology can be at work in your ration to bolster herd performance.

The foundation of any dairy nutrition program is built around forages. Forages typically make up 40 to 60 percent of the ration dry matter (DM). Forage (silage) quality, whether good or poor, dictates what other ingredients need to be fed.