FEED & NUTRITION

Dairy cows need water to turn feed into milk – a product that is already nearly 90 percent water.

Various additives, including micro-organisms, enzymes and chemical compounds, have been added to forages to maintain or improve the nutritive value of a crop as silage.

Forage particle size is a “hot” topic on dairy farms. Nutritionists, veterinarians and dairy farmers are asking how long forage fibre needs to be.

Although both disease-causing (pathogenic) and non-disease-causing bacteria, and fungi (yeasts and molds) can be brought in with the harvested crop or can flourish during storage or at feedout, there are plenty of potential opportunities for the TMR to acquire, and ultimately your high-producing dairy cows to ingest, these organisms or their metabolite products.

While beet pulp is well-known for being an energy concentrate that cows love, feed beets have yet to be discovered in a big way.

As nutritionists and dairy producers, our goal when feeding dairy cattle is to provide each group of cows with the nutrients needed to support their milk production, maintenance, growth, health and reproduction.