Due to the emphasis on rising milkfat percent, total milkfat production, and the value of milkfat, many dairy producers are looking for ways to capture better feed margins and greater production efficiency

Soil test is a good tool, but it only tells part of the forage story

High-quality forages are the foundation of a productive and healthy dairy herd. However, the way feed is managed from the field to the cow is crucial for maximizing a producer’s investment in forages

Tall fescue has become entrenched across the middle part of the eastern U.S., creating a region called the Tall Fescue Belt

Alfalfa hay has long been a premier forage for dairy cattle

Earlier this month, I was asked to speak on the future of forage in the dairy ration. Futuristic talks are both good and bad. On the one hand, it’s difficult to know what will happen before it happe

“The turkey’s on fire!”That was how I was greeted at my parents’ house on Thanksgiving minutes before the rest of our family was supposed to arrive. No, the bird in the oven was

Effective animal management is essential for maintaining healthy pastures and maximizing forage production

Forages are a key part of dairy diets with implications for dairy farm productivity and sustainability

Wabasha, Minn., may ring a bell as the setting of the 1993 comedy film “Grumpy Old Men.”

It is common to hear from university faculty that stocker cattle and Kentucky 31 tall fescue are a bad combination due to the forage’s fungal endophyte and its impacts on animal performance

The University of Wisconsin’s Randy Shaver and his colleagues developed the MILK2006 model nearly 20 years ago

Smaller margins due to higher feed costs and lower milk prices have been forcing dairy managers to find opportunities to reduce expenses

The futures market is shining a more promising light on milk prices for the second half of the year. Even with record high milk prices expected, though, the risk of weaker export sales, changes

If raising replacement heifers is such a large expense and over 50% of those expenses come from feed costs, the question should be: How can we reduce the costs of producing quality feed for dairy heifers?

High-quality corn silage and alfalfa and grass forages are staples on dairy farms; however, these feedstuffs provide inadequate fiber and excess energy for breeding-age and pregnant dairy heifers

Livestock systems across the country are ultimately anchored in the forage and feedstuffs available to them. Even as advances in the agricultural industry allow more opportunities for farms to expand

In the face of rising feed prices, dairy producers are seeking opportunities to feed low-cost forages now more than ever

The cow-calf industry is set to see a few profitable years once again. The national beef cow inventory is at its lowest numbers in decades with USDA’s July 2023 count indicating a herd size 3% smaller

The objectives of feeding cows are to provide a nutritionally balanced and relatively homogeneous ration fed in a way that suppresses selection by cows, has roughly 2% residual in the feedbunk at the end