Dairy Nutrition
The “Wood Milk” ad— funded through MilkPEP —goal is to make people pause and question what they are consuming and the nutritional value of their choices.
“Pushing feed is perhaps the simplest and least expensive management strategy dairy operators can implement.”
Acidification of milk or milk replacer is a common practice for some calf raisers, with some studies showing it improves weight gain and fecal scores in calves.
Supplementing early lactation dairy cow diets with bile acids could provide a pathway to suppressing fatty liver and ketosis, and ultimately boosting milk production and profitability.
Feed additives can be included in dairy cattle diets for a variety of reasons. However, feed additives should not be considered a cornerstone to any farm feeding program.
When it comes to the products of rumen fermentation, butyrate is a beneficial amino acid superstar.
Could probiotics improve early calf growth? Researchers think so.
Have you ever noticed that cows who calve during the fall and winter months tend to produce less colostrum than their herd mates who calved during the spring and summer? Here’s why.
In our quest for healthy, growthy, efficiently raised calves, have we lost some of the more fundamental elements of what makes calves tick?
It has been well-documented that feeding preweaned calves on a higher plane of nutrition improves calf health and performance. However, providing calves more nutrients may also promote wound healing.
Sometimes called “sudden death syndrome” or “bloody gut,” Hemorrhagic Bowel Syndrome is characterized by dark, tarry, and sometimes bright red, bloody feces; dehydration; and decreased feed intake.
Inflammation creates additional stress at calving.
The transition period, 3 weeks before and after calving, is challenging for all cows. But for first-calf heifers, it’s likely the scariest and most stressful time in their young lives.
Creating a herd where all the individuals are healthy and normal increases your chances of economic success.
Feeding waste milk to calves captures high-quality nutrients and adds value to a product that otherwise would be discarded. But recent research sheds light on concerns about the practice.
Researchers at Virginia Tech University have investigated what effects infusing extra acetate or propionate, or lowering the pH, would have on thermodynamics of VFA in the rumen.
Extra water – along with a possible electrolyte boost -- is never more important than in the heat of summer.
Trace minerals are important to calves’ development, but these nutritional components can vary in source. It turns out some trace minerals are more palatable than others, resulting in differences in consumption.
Paying attention to feed-bunk behaviors can alert dairy producers to issues with diet, feed management or delivery that impact health and performance.
We now know the beneficial influence of feeding transition milk to calves. Is there a way to deliver that nutritional and immunological support and bypass the tedious process of harvesting and feeding transition milk?
The sooner calves eat enough dry feed to sustain themselves, the better equipped they are to bridge the nutritional gap between the fixed liquid ration and a weaned diet of solely dry feeds.
Its name sounds like something that belongs in the pages of a Dr. Seuss book. But festulolium actually is a highly useful hybrid forage grass – the result of a cross between fescue grass and ryegrass.
Maternal colostrum is often considered nature’s “perfect food.” But does this “free” resource help calves achieve passive immunity as reliably as the guaranteed ingredients in a bag of colostrum replacer?
Keep an eye on water intake and feedstuffs. Avoid vaccinations when heat levels are high. Address the environment for management steps you can take to improve cow comfort.
Young animals often benefit from stemmy, lower quality forages. WIth regard to nutrition, this may seem counterintuitive but research indicates that’s the case.
A high incidence of sole ulcers in a dairy herd is probably not the fault of the ration.
Most research recommends 5-7% sugar as an upper limit. However, cows can certainly handle lots of sugar in the diet.
In the quest to find alternatives to antibiotics to fight disease in dairy calves, essential oils are the subject of a growing body of calf health research.
Providing free choice water to newborn calves has been shown to deliver a wide array of benefits in terms of calf health and performance. But it’s also a huge challenge for some farms in the winter.
A protocol overhaul helped the team at Singing Brook Farms, Imler, Pa., up their game in colostrum delivery. Two of their key managers share how they now seamlessly deliver high-quality colostrum to every newborn calf.