How Forage Quality and Cow Comfort Drive Dairy Success

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Dr. Heather Dann discusses optimizing dairy cow nutrition and management to enhance milk component yield, focusing on diet formulation, feeding practices, and cow comfort to improve farm sustainability and productivity. 

Timestamps & Summary  

Chris Gwyn (02:26) 
Going past the economic value, what can component volume and percentage tell us about the farm-level management and cow health? 

Dr. Heather Dann 
I think one of the important things that we need to look at is the pounds or kilos of fat and protein that our farm is producing. Some of the common metrics that we're currently using here […] are the kilos or pounds of fat and protein shipped. Several years ago, we had these targets of about 2.7 kilos, or about six-plus pounds. People were trying to join […] the six-pound club. And because of improvements in nutrition management as well as genetics, many farms have now been easily able to achieve that. And what we're seeing now is that those targets or those benchmarks are shifting. And we have many farms striving for that 3.2 kilos or 7 pounds-plus of milk. And we're fortunate here at the Institute that we're at that level and a little above. […] 

Chris Gwyn (04:10) 
What else can this high level of component yield tell us about what's going on from a management perspective or a cow health perspective? 

Dr. Heather Dann 
I think it really gives us a lot of insight into the general feeding practices and quality of the diet that's being had on farm. And one of the tools or metrics that we've been using for the last several years, and have found quite useful, is the fatty acid analysis piece that's come into play. […] 

Chris Gwyn (07:13) 
What do you see from your own experience or research as the most influential nutritional factors affecting component yield on the dairies? 

Dr. Heather Dann 
I think one of the most important things that we need to do is make sure we get the diet and the dining experience right to maximize milk components. And to me, that means that we need to focus on diet formulation, but also on the management environment in which that diet is delivered to the cows. […] 

But I think it just drives home the point that we can't just think about the diet formulation. It's beyond that; it's not just how it's formulated, but how we mix it, how we deliver it, and then make sure it's available to the cows throughout the day. […] 

Chris Gwyn (11:52) 
Does cow comfort management affects milk component yield in your experience and the research that you've done? 

Dr. Heather Dann 
I would say some of the work that we've done here at the Institute, as well as the Guelph Group, which is doing great work, and several other places, really drives home the point to me that we need to focus on optimizing key behaviours of those animals to maximize milk components. And that comes down to […] cow comfort. So, I'm thinking about the physical environment the cow is in, the social environment, not just with her own cow peers, but also, as farmers, how we interact with our animals. And those things are going to influence the key behaviors that I think about when I'm trying to set cows up to produce as much fat and protein as they can. So, resting time, rumination time, and feeding time. And if we can get those things right in the cow's daily time budget, then she's going to be productive, healthy, and have good well-being. So, some of the work that we've done here, we've gone out on farms and tried to understand why some farms have higher fat content than others. […] 

Chris Gwyn (19:29) 
Have you or others looked at what the time spread is in the delivery of feed? […]  Do we need to spread these meals by 4 hours, 6 hours, or 12 hours? 

Dr. Heather Dann 
That's a good question. I think Trevor DeVries has done some work with meal delivery times, as well as Kevin Harvatine at Penn State, who has been doing some work thinking about the timing of meal delivery. The Penn State work is really focused more on trying to understand the circadian rhythms of cows and the timing, and can we take advantage of a different feeding schedule that will allow cows to increase milk components. And there is some work on that. I think one of the things that needs to be explored further is: if we're going to feed twice a day, should we be changing the diet composition? […] 

Chris Gwyn (25:41) 
Any other key take-home messages that you'd want a listener to focus on from our last 25 minutes of discussion here? 

Dr. Heather Dann 
I mentioned earlier that protocol drift is really important. People get bored with routine tasks, and on our farm, that's feeding, that's bedding animals, that's milking them. And we can't forget to make sure that we're going back and reviewing and emphasizing the importance of those activities. But really, I think for me, the big take home today is that there's a simple recipe to getting more milk fat and protein, and that really comes down to carefully formulated rations along with great forage quality and feeding management, and then making sure we have top-notch cow management with a real emphasis on those transition cows. […]