FEED & NUTRITION

When it comes to “game changers,” the dairy industry has seen its fair share.

The science behind creating a gallon of milk continues to change rapidly, thanks to new technologies and with the push for efficient and profitable operations in the current marketplace, nutrigenomics is today’s game changer producers need to consider.

Thom Mueller, the 2012 winner of the Ontario Forage Masters Program, grew up in a small town just outside of Ottawa, Canada.

Colourful infrared images of bunk faces have become all the rage with consultants and sales people wanting to promote forage quality and silage additives. One company claims that infrared cameras can show the value of inoculants.

While weather is a constant uncertainty for dairy farmers, 2012 brought with it distinct challenges as alfalfa and grain suffered from drought, heat and destructive insects in Eastern Canada.

Many of the protein sources used in dairy rations are byproducts of the production of oil for food and industrial uses: soybean meal, sesame seed meal, linseed meal and canola meal, for example.

Reproductive performance in dairy cattle has been on the decline for the last four to five decades and has played a large role in involuntary culling. Substantial time and effort has been committed to research to better understand this issue, but effective solutions may be a culmination of multiple factors.