Optimize Your Dairy Feeding Program
« Improve Your Forage Pasture | Home | Protect Yourself from Theft and Vandalism »
Image: dan / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
In order to improve yields and overall herd health, optimizing your dairy feeding program has to be an essential part of your management plan.
Dairy cattle have very specific requirements when it comes to their nutritional needs and performance, so any changes that are made to their feed programs can have a significant impact on your dairy cow’s health. The nutrient densities in feed are minimized when the cow’s feed consumption is maximized, which therefore makes it easier to put together rations that will have adequate amount of nutrients. The amount of food consumed has a high correlation to the animal’s nutrient intake, therefore feed consumption should be maximized whenever possible. If feed consumption declines, the dietary nutrient densities will be increased. Therefore, the higher the intake, the more forage that can be added to the rations, requiring less concentrates.
By maximizing feed consumption, the cost of providing nutrients is lowered because more forage and by-product feeds can be added into the food rations. Maximized feed consumption allows for more flexibility in the kinds of feed that can be used.
Now, obviously, the quality of the forage will have a huge effect on consumption. By feeding the highest-quality forage, you’re ensuring the maximum feed consumption and minimum nutrient densities. One of the biggest mistakes farmers make is feeing high-fibre/low-energy roughages to herds, thereby not reaching maximum dry matter intake. Roughage should contain high levels of digestible energy in order to be used most efficiently by the cattle.
With low-quality forage, digestion is slowed down causing the cow to fill full and reducing feed intake. If there is no choice but to feed low-quality forage, it should be chopped down in order to minimize that effect, but not chopped so finely as to lower the levels of milk butterfat by reducing the effective fibre level.
It’s very important to minimize heat stress in cows which will also reduce the amount of feed consumed. Ensure that cows are adequate access to shade and water. In very hot weather, use misters or evaporative coolers in conjunctions with fans to lower the ambient temperature and reduce heat stress.
Furthermore, an adequate consumption of water is vital to ensure maximum feed consumption, so ensure that cattle have constant access to fresh, high-quality water.
