“Moo,” you’re on candid dairy camera. It brings up silly images, but time-lapse photography is proving valuable for monitoring and correcting feed delivery to dairy cows. What Todd Franz has found isn’t pretty. “Only one out of 20 farms or one out of 30 is not letting cows run out of feed,” he says. “Our current on-farm record for cows with no feed is 11 hours.”
Source: Dairy Herd Management, May 1, 2017.
Bunks out of feed, feed not pushed up or uneven distribution of feed along the length of the bunk is a problem. Cows want to eat 10 to 15 times a day, and eat smaller meals. And research shows that every additional pound of dry matter intake in early lactation yields two pounds of milk.
INSIGHTS: Veterinary teams and sales reps can offer this article to dairy producers as part of a farm call. The results are compelling and the conversations should lead to other actionable topics.