As spring progresses to summer, the percentage of haylage and small grains in TMR often increases to stretch corn silage inventories or to dilute corn silage if the quality isn’t as good as we had hoped.

Even when a farm does everything right prior to feedout, silage piles that are subjected to less-than-ideal face management have the potential for massive spoilage.

Successful dairies achieve consistent performance by implementing protocols that reduce variation within their operation. They do everything they can to limit the internal and external pressures cows face, while creating resilient animals that can withstand the pressures beyond their control.

The cost of crop inputs and common feed ingredients used in dairy rations has dominated many discussions this past year. A commonality in growing crops and feeding cows is the need to balance cost and efficiency with production and return on investment.

Feed is expensive. The good news is: Successfully implementing feed management protocols can help to lower your feed cost. Feed management encompasses many aspects on a dairy, some of which can’t be controlled like weather, markets and supply chain.

As volatile markets push nutrient costs higher, consider diet options, market trends, ingredients and milk markets to manage your feed budget. 

Producers should ask themselves and their nutritionists how to be more efficient and handle supply chain disruptions given the present state of milk prices, supply chain issues and lower forage inventories.

It’s a world full of confusing, shifting, mislabeled and misunderstood compounds and structures.