One of the best ways to quickly orient someone to a lactation dairy ration is to compare it to the diets of a mama cow grazing native pasture and a feedlot steer. These are the two extremes
“Go big or go home” wasn’t the motivation for Mark Van Dam when he established Rising Sun Dairy. Quite the opposite, as the self-proclaimed “micro-dairy” was designed for
Due to the emphasis on rising milkfat percent, total milkfat production, and the value of milkfat, many dairy producers are looking for ways to capture better feed margins and greater production efficiency
High-quality forages are the foundation of a productive and healthy dairy herd. However, the way feed is managed from the field to the cow is crucial for maximizing a producer’s investment in forages
Earlier this month, I was asked to speak on the future of forage in the dairy ration. Futuristic talks are both good and bad. On the one hand, it’s difficult to know what will happen before it happe
The futures market is shining a more promising light on milk prices for the second half of the year. Even with record high milk prices expected, though, the risk of weaker export sales, changes
If raising replacement heifers is such a large expense and over 50% of those expenses come from feed costs, the question should be: How can we reduce the costs of producing quality feed for dairy heifers?
High-quality corn silage and alfalfa and grass forages are staples on dairy farms; however, these feedstuffs provide inadequate fiber and excess energy for breeding-age and pregnant dairy heifers
Livestock systems across the country are ultimately anchored in the forage and feedstuffs available to them. Even as advances in the agricultural industry allow more opportunities for farms to expand
The objectives of feeding cows are to provide a nutritionally balanced and relatively homogeneous ration fed in a way that suppresses selection by cows, has roughly 2% residual in the feedbunk at the end
As dairy producers have been growing more corn silage and feeding it in lactating cow rations, there has also been a rise in the use of other annual forages. This has been driven by expanding interest
Feeding a higher percentage of forage in dairy cow diets is a strategy that’s growing in popularity as homegrown feeds become more cost-effective compared to high-priced commodities. High-forage
