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Commercial milk replacers are often compared and evaluated based on the percentage of protein and fat on the label.
Discussion rarely delves into what makes up the components of fat and its effects on digestion, absorption or growth.
In the constantly evolving dairy industry, producers and nutritionists continuously seek nutritional tools for improvement of nutrient availability.
The goal is to meet the ever-increasing nutrient demand in support of the animal’s genetic potential for growth, reproduction, and of particular importance, efficient milk and component production.
Dietary potassium is a significant nutrient for good dairy cow health and nutrition.
This macromineral impacts carbohydrate metabolism, amino acid uptake and protein synthesis, all of which aid in milk production as well as reproductive performance, immune function and cow well-being.
A key part of your nutritionist’s role is to understand and properly utilize forage and feed analysis results from labs. That is a complex task.
Over the past several years, I have been involved with a group of labs that developed definitions for over 125 items that can be reported on forage analysis reports.
Over the past couple of years, we’ve been able to measure what commercial dairy cattle digest on-farm by analyzing TMR and manure samples that nutritionists send us from high-cow pens.
We measure TMR and manure nutrient content, a digestion marker, and then calculate what cows apparently digest (and conversely, what they did not). What we are measuring is in some cases eye-opening.
Three dairy producers share silage management practices
Over the next several months, three dairy producers from across the country will be sharing silage management strategies they use and steps they take to mitigate shrink loss.
Is your total mixed ration (TMR) uniform? Ever question if all forages, grains, protein feeds, minerals, vitamins and feed additives are evenly combined in a single feed mix? Ever question if your ration could be holding back production?
When corn is $7, we want to get everything we can from the corn we are feeding.
What do we have in storage? Is that really high-moisture corn?
How do we measure quality?
Generally, a confined operator is at the mercy of high feed costs and must continually look at trimming other farm costs to maintain profitability. However, for the farmer who grazes all or part of his herd, increased forage production is a viable alternative.
Editor's note: Dr. Roy “Mike” Watkins passed away March 3, 2013. This is the last article he submitted for publication during a decades-long career.
Hot, dry, drought conditions in the summer of 2012 set the tone for crops across the Corn Belt and beyond. Corn yields were significantly reduced as noted in the continual decline in USDA crop yield projections.
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