Over the years I’ve had the privilege of working with and visiting a number of herds across the country that were producing 100 pounds of milk or more per cow per day. What are the secrets of these herds with a bulk tank average that mirrors high-group production levels for many herds?

Proper management of animal mortalities on livestock operations has important implications in nutrient management, herd and flock health, as well as the health of farm families and public health. For this reason it is imperative to be familiar with best management practices for dealing with dead animals.

Renaissance Nutrition, Inc. held its annual company educational conference in late July, with a lineup of 10 nationally recognized speakers from the dairy industry. A total of nearly 150 people from both the U.S. and Canada, including company nutritionists, university dairy extension faculty, veterinarians and allied industry personnel, attended the three-day meeting to learn about the newest information and research on cow management, cow comfort, nutrition and economics. The following summary shares some of the take-home messages provided by the 17 presentations offered at the conference.

Maintaining good udder health and low bulk tank somatic cell counts (SCC) is increasingly important to dairy profitability, particularly in light of the recent marketing requirement adopted by most milk processors to limit bulk tank SCC to a maximum of 400,000 cells per ml. Compliance with this new standard generally means that dairies must implement consistent and correct practices in a number of areas. A focus on clean cows, dry environments, proper udder prep and milking machine function, along with prudent monitoring, treatment and culling decisions, is commonly emphasized by herds with perennially low SCC.

Sound reproductive programs are one of the keys to dairy profitability. Perhaps no other area of dairy management has as many influencing factors as reproduction. A herd’s incidence and severity of metabolic and infectious disease, lameness and heat stress, the level of milk production, heat detection accuracy and efficiency, conception rate and a variety of other cow, management and nutritional considerations, all can and do influence reproductive success to varying degrees.

Why is peak milk important? • Increased milk yield. The vast majority of dairies generate the vast majority of their incomes through milk sales. The correlation between peak milk yield and actual 305-day milk production is highly positive. Each additional pound of peak milk should translate into an additional 200-280 lbs of milk in mature cows and 300+ lbs in first-calf heifers across the entire lactation. Conservatively, each one-pound increase in herd average peak milk production should generate at least 20,000 lbs more milk per 100 cows per year.