ACE Expo 99
MANAGING FEEDING AND NUTRITION WITH COMPUTERS
Dale R. Hershey
Hershey Brothers Dairy
December 8, 1999
I’m sure you have heard the statement, "In feeding dairy cattle we work with three different rations: the ration formulated on paper, the ration we mix and feed to the cows, and the ration the cows actually eat". As feeding managers our goal and challenge is to keep these three rations as similar as possible. There are a number of tools that I consider essential to do this accurately and with consistency. These tools would include:
I would have a great deal of difficulty trying to prioritize these tools and can’t imagine doing without any one of them. The computer, however, obviously plays a key role in making all of the other tools work for us in balancing and feeding dairy cows.
On our dairy I manage the nutrition and feeding of the milking herd, dry cows, heifers, and calves. I hire an independent dairy nutritional consultant to help balance rations and provide nutrition and feeding oversight. Using Spartan dairy nutrition software we formulate a supplement mix that is put out to several mills for trailer load bids. Depending on the commodity market trends, I will contract with a mill for anywhere from one trailer load to a full years supply. I also buy cottonseed and other commodities such as citrus pulp, hominy, and canola when it is a good buy. Determining "best buy" commodities is fairly simple using the nutritional software.
My consultant makes two visits a month to the farm. In between visits we depend on e-mail to communicate. His first consultation begins by looking at herd management data from the PC Dart herd management program. I try to have standard print outs ready for him when he arrives. The information we look at includes:
We then walk through the herd to observe body condition, manure consistency and feed pass thru, feet and legs, rumination, coat condition, evidence of acidosis and ketosis and general health of the herd. Forages and feeds are then checked for quality and consistency. Returning to the office, we discuss what we have observed and make necessary changes to group rations. I can then print new TMR sheets and implement changes immediately.
The second consultation is a 2-hour office visit involving all managers and focuses on overall goals and management coordination. Several days in advance, our consultant e-mails a written summary of the observations and conclusions from the previous visit and a suggested agenda for our meeting. This helps keep all managers informed and allows for discussion and planning where management areas overlap or are interdependent.
To fine tune the ration between consultant visits I monitor:
I adjust and fine-tune the ration in the computer as necessary and print new TMR sheets. If the nutritional balance seems to need adjustment I will make those changes and generally e-mail the new rations to my consultant for his comment. He usually finds something to adjust and e-mails new rations back to me. These files can be loaded directly into Spartan and saved as new rations. I have learned from experience not to make major adjustments without his knowledge. Some ration changes can result in short term milk increases but have long-term negative consequences to herd health.
Some general nutritional guidelines that we use are:
I also use the Spartan program to monitor feed cost per cwt of milk and to research "best buy" feed commodities as discussed above. In addition to the ration management software, some other computer uses in feeding management include:
The computer and the ration balancing software are really nothing more than a giant calculator that allows one to look at a number of calculations at one time. They are, however, only as good as the forage sample results entered into the program, accuracy of the dry matter intake (DMI) the group is eating, common sense of the operator, and the theory behind the ration balancing software. Each software program is written with a specific nutritional theory in mind. Therefore it is important to understand the theory and how it is applied in balancing rations. Software analysis can never be put ahead of what the cows are telling us. Computers don’t make dairy nutrition simple, but they make it a lot more understandable and manageable.