Shrink is hard to define, but committing to best management practices during harvest, ensiling and feedout can reduce its impact. Over the past few years, sustainability has earned its status as a dairy...
Drought, less acreage, and rising global demand are reasons why. Droughts in the West and rising demand around the world are increasing the price of hay and other forages for U.S. milk producers. And...
In difficult economic times, we become better managers. Shrink is one area where we can tighten our belts. Dairy rations are balanced on the cents per cow that an ingredient will add to or cut from a feed...
Dairymen balance their feed budgets on pennies. Ingredients are often pulled from a ration based on the perceived cents per cow it could save the bottom line
"In the best-case scenario, we'll lose only 2 to 3 percent of our harvested forage tons to fermentation shrink," noted John Goeser, Rock River Laboratory, at the Penn State Dairy Nutrition Conference
In Japan, not only are people enjoying a treat from Starbucks, some cows are, too. Starbucks purchases somewhere around 400 million pounds of coffee globally each year, according to Bloomberg Businessweek
Much of the action in dairy feed prices has centered on soybean meal and its record-setting pace of exports the past three months. USDA crunched numbers on soybean crush, domestic use and export commitments,...
Tracking feed inventory is a valuable strategy for any size farm, especially with the growing unpredictability of Mother Nature and a more volatile commodity market
Accurate samples are the cornerstone of diet formulation. Yet, for some nutrients, sampling itself is a major source of the variation seen from one nutrient analysis to the next
Reader Response: Think component efficiency Regarding Brian Perkins' use of the term "dairy efficiency" to represent the ratio between milk production and dry matter intakes (in the January 20 Hoard's...
Feed efficiency is certainly a buzzword in the dairy industry today. Is it the goal we all should be striving for? From a nutritionist's standpoint, Brian Perkins from Diamond V Technical Services explained...
Most by-product feed markets tend to track corn and soybean meal prices. Producers, therefore, saw little urgency to secure supplies as the price of corn fell during the summer months. But, while corn...
We know how to calculate feed shrink. We don't know how to obtain accurate real-time measurements.Every dairy has a vested economic interest in reducing feed shrink. "Feed wastage occurs on-farm in four...
Review these ten decisions to determine if you can find additional income or reduce expenses on your farm or with your clients. Be a detective and make long-term economic decisions
Don't make rash changes based on a single ingredient analysis. Repeated sampling teases out if this is true variation or an error. Feed and forage nutrient composition
Few things can irritate a person like finding out they overpaid for a product or did not sell their own for its true value. In the April 8 Hoard's Dairyman "Reviewing forage and feed costs – What's...
In our February 10, 2013, issue, four producers from Vermont, New York, Wisconsin and California shared their thoughts on feeding high-forage diets to their herds. With the level of detail these producers...
"Consistent, efficient TMR feeding" was the topic of yesterday's webinar presented by Tom Oelberg of Diamond V. Oelberg has conducted hundreds of TMR audits and has seen several areas of concern for those...