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If you Google “five ways to,” you get a laundry list of how-to articles – five ways to channel your inner millionaire (it’s a joke, right?), five ways to kick the cable TV habit (does 26 hours a day constitute a habit?), five ways to do nothing and become more productive (sign me up), five ways to remove stripped screws (although it doesn’t list a burn pile, which works pretty well).
Both dairymen who are test-driving a new handheld feedstuff moisture monitor say it’s still too early to tell if the unit will be of long-term use to their dairies.
Since this spring, Cottonwood Dairy in South Wayne, Wisconsin, and P7 Dairy in Roswell, New Mexico, have been using Digi-Star’s Moisture Tracker, a NIR-enabled unit that provides moisture readings on forage and feed within a minute or two.
Did you know that even if your farm is located in Canada or the northern U.S., heat stress will negatively impact your farm profitability? Although many dairy herds are in a higher northern parallel, they are suffering from high temperature and humidity during summer months.
Alfalfa haylage has become a staple in the diets of high-producing dairy cows across the nation, due primarily to its significant contributions of crude protein and physically effective fiber (peNDF) in most TMRs, but still it remains one of the most difficult and challenging forages to ensile properly.
Optimum performance in a dairy herd requires high-quality feed. Hay is often tested for nutrient levels before purchase, or when determining how to best feed or supplement homegrown hay.
Some of the common tools used for hay analyses include analytical tests for crude protein (CP) and fiber components – which are stated as acid-detergent fiber (ADF) and neutral-detergent fiber (NDF). Many dairy producers and hay growers also use an index system such as relative feed value (RFV) to compare forages.
Q. Why is this a top resource article?
"Calculating feed efficiency continues to be a metric that producers follow on how well cows are converting feed into milk. When feed efficiency is not where it should be, that is when we evaluate forage quality and the ration to examine what adjustments need to be made. On some profit team meetings, feed efficiency continues to be one of the key performance indicators."
—Virginia Ishler
The livestock industry has used feed conversion ratio, feed conversion rate or feed conversion efficiency to measure an animal’s efficiency in converting feed mass into increased body mass. This has been used by the beef, poultry, swine and fish industries as a way to measure profitability.
Q. Why is this a top resource article?
"I believe the reason for continual reference to the corn silage article is because every year corn silage growers and cattle/dairy producers need to review corn silage production goals with their respective teams. These teams include people harvesting the crop in the field, people filling the silos and finally people involved in feedout management and working to balance around transition from old to new crop corn silage. Once everyone on the team is aware of what is expected with the corn silage crop, then those beef and dairy end users have a better chance of feeding the highest quality silage to their cattle. As has been my goal with writing my articles for farm publications, I've always tried producing a list of basic action points for discussion along with providing recommended goals.” —Bill Seglar
Inclusion of corn silage into dairy rations is more complex than other feed ingredients because corn silage is really two feedstuffs: high-moisture corn grain and grass silage.
As a result, the nutritional value of corn silage can vary based on crop growing conditions, harvest moisture and the type of fermentation that occurred in the silo.
Saccharomyces cerevisiae fermentation products, more commonly but less accurately referred to as yeast fermentation products (Saccharomyces cerevisiae is one species of yeast which is commonly used for baking, brewing and wine-making), are one of the most commonly used feed additives currently on the market for dairy rations.
Dairy producers seeking to increase the ration energy level for high-producing cows have increasingly turned to feeding supplemental fat as a way to accomplish this goal.
That’s because supplemental fat, especially in early lactation, supports milk production, helps cows retain body condition and positively influences reproductive performance. Plus, fats contain 2.25 times more energy than starches and digestible fiber found in common grain or forage sources.
For the first time in several years, the prices of corn grain and many corn byproducts are at favorable levels that encourage increased use of these ingredients in dairy diets.
Corn distillers grains are particularly appealing because they offer both a higher protein and higher energy content, so you get more bang for your buck. However, the higher energy or fat content, which is largely due to the corn oil in the distillers, also can be quite variable.
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