Feed for the Future

“As dairy farmers, you feed a properly balanced ration to your cows designed to optimize health and productivity.  So do you do the same for your calves?”  Todd McDonough from Land O’Lakes Animal Milk posed this question during one of the recent Calf Roundtable Discussion meetings hosted by Landmark Services Cooperative.  When considering how a calf utilizes the nutrients they are fed, McDonough encourages both farmers and nutritionists to remember the acronym “M.I.G.”, which stands for Maintenance, Immune System, and Growth.  This is the order in which a calf partitions nutrients within their small bodies.  Young calves have such a high nutrient demand just for maintenance simply to keep themselves alive, many calves are fed a diet deficient in vitamins, protein, and fat.  This compromises a calf’s ability to develop a strong immune system, let alone partition any nutrients for growth of the calf.  In addition, the maintenance requirement can increase significantly based on stress, weather, environment, or health challenges.  Such challenges partition even more nutrients to maintenance, leaving less to be used for immune system development or meeting the farmer’s growth goals.

 

When considering how to feed the animals that will dictate the future profitability of your dairy farm, make sure you are balancing a proper diet for them.  Tools exist for balancing a diet of milk and calf starter for young calves, and a representative from the Animal Nutrition Division at Landmark Services Cooperative can help you do this. 

Ag Day 2015

Ag Day 2015

Real Life Farm Summit: Strategies to make your Farm Team Champions

Henry Ford once said this about this success of teamwork, "Coming together is a beginning.  Keeping together is progress.  Working together is success."

 

The 2015 Real Life Farm Summit focused on just that, teamwork, more specifically "Strategies to make your Farm Team Champions."  With an all-star line-up of speakers, attendees were filled with valuable information and solutions to take back to their farms and their teams. 

 

Dr. Jay Lehr, kicked off the day with his discussion on risk management, changes we are currently seeing in agriculture and shared his insight on the future of the industry.  He also showed attendees his true advocacy for agriculture in this video, when he took to the streets of San Francisco to educate them on what fertilizer is and the positive impact it has in our country.

 

 

 

Following Dr. Lehr's keynote address attendees had the opportunity to attend two out of the three breakout sessions, that relate directly to their farm operations.  They included:

 

Matt Solymossy, Landmark Safety Manager, presented "Don't get Sidelined by Regulatory Agencies," with a focus on Wisconsin act 377--changes to Implements of Husbandry laws and OSHA reportable injuries. 

 



"Creating and Maintaining a Winning Team," presented by Executive Vice President of Human Resources, Jeremy Henkels, with an emphasis on finding good employees and keeping them and I-9 compliance. 

 

Hans Pflieger and Bob Panzer of Verity Business Solutions, LLC, shared with attendees how to "Do the Lambeau Leap when you look at your Financial Statement" as they took an in-depth look at farm financial health. 

To close out the day attendees gave a super bowl welcome to William Henderson, formerly of the Green Bay Packers.  He took to the stage with an outstanding message on the hard work and dedication of farmers, and the fact that what they do isn't always easy, but it is worth it!

Real Life Farm Summit

National Ag Day is March 18th

Help us celebrate and recognize the most hardworking, noble and dedicated industry that is agriculture.  Submit your favorite photos of all things agriculture and they will be highlighted in a video for National Ag Day, thanking America’s hardworking men and women for all they do in our industry. 

The video will be posted on March 18^th, National Ag Day, and will be available for you to share and spread the message about this great industry. 

Email your photos to Kristi Olson (kristi.olson@landmark.coop) by March 17^h.  Submitting photos will enter you in a drawing for Landmark apparel.    

 

Have your calves been starving this winter?

Why do calves struggle to grow and survive in the winter?  Much of the answer comes from the fact that calves have a lot of surface area relative to their mass.  This means that calves need a lot of energy to keep warm due to the amount of body heat they can lose.  An excellent tool to predict performance of calves in different temperature scenarios exists in the 2001 Nutrient Requirements of Dairy Cattle (NRC, 7^th edition, 2001).  Simulations of calf performance can be made using diets with various levels of nutrition fed at various temperatures.  A calf's energy requirement increases as ambient temperature decreases.

Table 1 shows a comparison of three milk replacer feeding programs for a 100 pound calf one week of age that is not consuming any starter.  In other words, the baby calf relies on milk replacer for all nutrients.  The three milk replacer feeding programs are a 20% protein, 20% fat (20/20) all milk, calf milk replacer fed at 1.0 pounds/day (conventional) or 1.25 pounds/day (increased gain).  The third program uses a high protein (28%) milk replacer fed at 2.5 pounds/day using an intensified calf-feeding program. Using the NRC program, daily gains on calves were predicted for each program at 0, 20, 40, and 60° F.

The table shows that at an average temperature of 60° F, the calves gained weight on all programs, although the calves fed the higher protein milk replacer gain 6 times as much weight as the calves on the conventional feeding program.  When average temperatures drop to 40° F, calves fed a conventional program do not have enough nutrients to gain weight and the gain on the increased gain program drops by two thirds while the calves fed the intensified program continued to gain, but at a slightly slower rate.  As average temperatures drop to 0° F and 20° F, calves fed the 20/20 milk replacer on either the conventional or increased gain program either stop gaining weight or lose weight.  Only the calves on the intensified feeding program continue to gain weight, even at colder temperatures.  In extreme cold temperatures where calves are kept in cold housing, traditional milk replacer programs do not provide enough nutrients to maintain a healthy calf.  The calf will lose weight, the immunity may be compromised and some calves may die of starvation if they do not increase their starter consumption dramatically.  Many calves are not able to increase their starter intake rapidly enough to compensate for the energy shortfall.  The result is that the calf may become weakened and ultimately dies of malnutrition or starvation.

 

Table 1.  Comparison of average daily gains for a 100 pound calf, one week of age, fed different amounts of milk replacer at different temperatures (Based on 2001 NRC predictions)
	Conventional	Increased Gain	Intensified Management
Milk replacer (protein/fat)	20/20	20/20	28/20
Pounds powder (#/d)	1.0	1.25	2.50
Average Temperature	Average Daily gain (#/day)
60° F	.39	.79	2.48
40° F	.01	.26	2.11
20° F	Weight loss	0	1.83
0° F	Weight loss	Weight loss	1.56

 

 

What are the options to prevent starvation of calves during cold stress?  Some producers will attempt to improve the energy status of calves during cold weather.  When average temperatures are 0° F, it will take .3 pounds of fat to prevent the calf from losing weight.  However, additional fat will result in up to .4 pounds of gain when temperatures average 20° F.    Another option is to feed an additional feeding of milk replacer.  Feeding 1.5 pounds/day (in 3 feedings/day) of 20/20 milk replacer at an average temperature of 0° F will maintain body weight and result in gains of  .30 pounds/day when temperatures average 20° F.   However, the best option for cold weather feeding is an intensified feeding program, as it will maintain the nutrients a calf needs to maintain body heat and continue to grow. 

 

Some producers will argue that an intensified feeding program is too expensive to implement.  Table 2 shows an economic comparison of the three scenarios presented in Table 1 at 40° F.  On a cost/day basis, the conventional program is the lowest cost at $.84/calf/day, with the higher feeding rate of the 20/20 milk replacer costing $1.05/calf/day and the intensified management program costing $2.70/calf/day.  Purely from a cost standpoint, the conventional program makes the most sense.  However, if you factor in calf performance and evaluate cost in terms of pounds of gain, the results reverse themselves.  With virtually no gain the conventional program costs $84/pound of gain, the increased gain program costs $4.04/pound of gain and the intensified feeding program costs $1.08/pound of gain.  Clearly, the returns are improved when the nutrition of baby calves is improved.  If your calves have not performed very well this winter, consider providing them with the nutrients they need to achieve acceptable gains. 

 

Table 2.  Economic comparison of average daily gains for a 100-pound calf, one week of age, fed different amounts of milk replacer at 40° F.
	Conventional	Increased Gain	Intensified Management
Milk replacer (protein/fat)	20/20	20/20	28/20
Pounds powder (#/d)	1.0	1.25	2.50
Average Daily gain (#/day)	.01	.26	2.11
Cost ($/bag)	42	42	54
Cost ($/pound)	.84	.84	1.08
Cost ($/day)	.84	1.05	2.70
Cost($/pound of gain)	84	4.04	1.08

 

When is the best time to market your grain?