It was dairy producer Danny Martins’ vision to design a fully automated feed center where he didn’t have to rely on multiple feeders and could instead entrust just one person.

The foundation of most diets fed to dairy and beef cattle includes forages, but making them into high-quality silage that can be fed year-round is a challenge.

The list of notable weather events in 2023 is long and varied — from drought conditions in parts of the Midwest, to extreme flooding in portions of New England, to smoky skies from Canadian wildfires.

Learn how to manage forage inventories after harvest, improve average daily gain of calves and capitalize during times of tight farm margins.

There are a few areas on a farm that don’t receive as much attention by publications, consultants and even the dairy producers themselves that can have a dramatic impact on farm profitability. 

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.

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.