Five Dairy “Do NOT Do” in 2018

Five Dairy “Do NOT Do” in 2018

Mike Hutjens, a nutritionist with the University of Illinois, has a quick-hit list of “do NOT do” items this year, despite low milk prices and low margins:

• Remove minerals from rations

• Cheat heifers; slow down growth

• Delay breeding with longer calving intervals

• Avoid body condition scores > 3.25 without rBST

• Saving a dime and lose a dollar (organic trace minerals, hoof trimming, bull breeding)

Hutjens also has this check-list of management items you should be doing on your dairy to optimize profitability. His challenge to you: Are you doing at least five?

• Feeding an accelerated milk or milk replacer program (2% birth weight as milk solids dry matter)

• Calving heifers at 23 to 24 months of age with monitoring growth 1.8 lb average daily growth (Holsteins)

• Consider the low-energy / high-straw dry cow ration

• Strategic use of feed additives

• Implement a fresh cow group (for 10 to 21 days)

• Use of calcium boluses for at risk cows (50 grams with Calcium chloride, propionate, or sulfate)

• Supplementing organic trace minerals (Zinc, Copper, Chromium, and Selenium)

• Heat stress abatement for dry cows

Jim Dickrell
Wed, 05/09/2018 – 09:49

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Are you also “doing” at least five of these 10 recommended practices?

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Farm Journal

Source: Dairy Herd