Brian Waymire, dairy manager at DeGroot Dairy Farms, is seeing overall improvement in his herd’s repro performance, milk production and herd health after adjusting his cows’ diet and conducting feeding trials through the hot summer months when milk production historically can take a major hit.

Using feed efficiency as the silver-bullet answer for questions of on-farm sustainability can be tempting. After all, feed costs represent 50 to 60 percent of the operating expenses of the average dairy farm. Feed production and its consumption are a considerable portion of the environmental footprint as well.

The temperature of silage can help us monitor the ensiling process from production to feedout. Oxygen in the silo disrupts the anaerobic ensiling process and initiates biological and chemical processes that consume nutrients and energy, leading to heat production.

There’s something farmers do when watching a weather forecast prior to chopping hay. It’s the same thing that’s done before an alfalfa or corn variety gets chosen – or a hand is revealed in a game of poker.

It only takes a mere 30 seconds with Tom Trantham of Pelzer, South Carolina, to understand why he was named 2015 South Carolina Farmer of the Year.

Making and feeding hay and silage is a lot of work. It takes time and money. “Can we get the animals to do some of that work for us?”

What is iNDF or uNDF? A: The fiber that is locked within lignin and never (ever) capable of being digested is now termed indigestible NDF (iNDF). We use undigested NDF (uNDF) at 120 or 240 hours of digestion to estimate iNDF.

One of the greatest challenges facing a producer of dairy cattle is effective management of change in feed rations. Cows do not make change easy in their reactions to new feed throughout all seasons, as it takes the average cow 10 to 12 days to build up good bacteria naturally in the rumen to break down new feedstuffs.

Editor’s note: Balchem Corporation sponsored a post-conference seminar focusing on milk protein production following the 2015 Penn State Extension Dairy Cattle Nutrition Workshop held recently in Grantville, Pennsylvania.

Dairy cow fertility has improved significantly over the past 10 to 15 years. Recent USDA data show that on most farms, 21-day pregnancy rates are on the rise, with many herds achieving 20 percent or better on a regular basis.