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Hoof health starts with the heifer
Hoof health is essential for not only the overall health of the animal, but also for her welfare. Digital dermatitis (DD), or hairy heel warts, is an extremely painful condition for dairy cattle, reducing their ability to walk to and from the milking parlor, or to the feed bunk. Based on USDA NAHMS 2017 data, 16.8% of all cows and 2.6% of bred heifers have lameness on a dairy operation.
You can’t manage what you don’t measure: Knowing and managing heifer weights
With the cost to raise a dairy replacement being more than to purchase one, farmers must be diligent in raising a dairy replacement to enter the milking string at the optimal time and weight to reduce rearing costs and increase productivity. Numerous studies recommend the optimal age at first calving (AFC) is 24 months of age. Any delay past 24 months will add an additional $2.50, or more, a day to the cost of raising replacements as well as require more heifers to meet the herd replacement needs.
What kind of dairy cow should you be creating?
In 2019 Cargill conducted a Feed4Thought survey of consumers from the United States, China, Mexico, and Spain. In this survey, they asked consumers to identify the word that best described what they wanted a farmer to be. The survey showed 30% of respondents wanted farmers to be “sustainable.” The second most-used word to describe what […]
Cocktail Forage Mix Yield, Quality, and Use in Lactating Cow Diets
Studies to evaluate cocktail forage mixes were conducted in 2021 and supported by the UW Dairy Innovation Hub. Research discussed here includes collection of on-farm data from four farms growing a cocktail forage mix and a lactating cow feeding trial at the UW Marshfield Agricultural Research Station (ARS). Please refer to the “Cocktail Forage Mix […]
Use of high-fiber forages in pregnant dairy heifer diets
The nutrient needs of dairy heifers change with age and size as they approach maturity with feed intake increasing and diet nutrient concentrations decreasing (Table 1). This is due to changes in growth with heifers having a higher rate of protein growth prior to breeding with slower protein growth as they approach mature body weight. […]
Feeding for efficiency: Dietary impacts on greenhouse gas production
A greenhouse gas is any gas in the atmosphere capable of absorbing heat from the sun and stopping it from radiating back into space. Many greenhouse gases occur naturally in our environment at low concentrations. However, human activity is increasing the concentration of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere, thereby trapping, and storing, additional heat and […]
Weight or wait? How defining breeding eligibility of heifers Impacts first lactation milk production
Raising replacement heifers is a large investment for farmers to create the next generation for their herd. The cost of raising a replacement heifer on average is $2,500 with feed accounting for approximately 50% of the total rearing cost.1,2 The average age at first calving (AFC) has been decreasing in the United States because farmers […]
Three Stages of Bovine Parturition
There are three stages to the birthing process, or parturition: dilation of the cervix, delivery of the calf, and delivery of the placenta. Knowing the normal birth process will help you decide whether or not to intervene.
Adding Value to Dairy x Beef Calves
Preconditioning dairy-beef calves for success as beef Various marketing opportunities exist for dairies to market dairy-beef cross calves including selling them ‘wet’ (i.e., preweaned, younger than 8 weeks of age). Dairies may retain ownership, marketing preconditioned or backgrounded feeder calves at approximately 400 or 700 lbs. Dairies may also finish beef cross cattle. Let’s take […]
Basics of Cocktail Forage Mixes
Cocktail forage mixes have become popular due to their use after a cereal forage harvest, their good forage quality, and their ability to apply in-season manure. In general, cocktail forage mixes are a blend of annual grasses (warm and/or cool season) and legumes. The warm season grasses are usually sorghum-sudangrass, sudangrass, or millets, and cool […]
Pricing Corn Silage
What is corn silage? Corn silage is a unique feed that combines high non-fiber carbohydrate (starch) and neutral detergent fiber (NDF). It does not feed strictly like a forage or a concentrate. Corn silage is also unique when looking at the NDF fraction of the feed. If corn silage is separated into its two primary […]
Chlorine Dioxide as a Livestock Operation Disinfectant
By Donald C. Sockett, DVM, MS, PHD, DACVIM (large animal); Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory, UW-Madison It is important for livestock barns, calf pens, and calf feeding equipment to be properly cleaned before the disinfectant is applied. If surfaces are not properly cleaned, the disinfection step is much less effective at killing disease-causing microorganisms. Many disinfectants […]