In the current scenario due to increased input costs, commercial dairy operations are seeking reduced-cost feed alternatives to enhance productivity while reducing feed costs. The organic dairy sector has had recent unprecedented changes in their industry due to increased grain prices. Therefore, organic dairy farmers in particular are seeking lowercost energy alternatives. Sugar cane molasses,...

There are many reasons that we might wish to wean calves earlier than the traditional 205 days of age. Some of these conditions include: when forage supplies are low such as in a drought, when forage supplies are low quality like pure fescue pastures in mid summer, when you are having problems getting cows and/or first calf heifers bred, when you wish to market cull cows that have calved on a b...

The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of weaning 60d early and the choice of calf supplement on calf performance and economic return. Additionally, cow body weight (BW), body condition score (BCS), and economic outcome of weaning 60 d early was evaluated. Forty 2-yr old cows and calves were divided into 3 groups; early-weaned and supplemented with Southern States Jump Start fee...

Weights and individual feed consumptions of 160 beef, dairy and beef • dairy darns and their progeny were used to estimate several measures of life cycle cow efficiency. Efficiency was expressed as the ratio of ou tput to input, where output included relative values for slaughter weights, carcass weights and t r immed wholesale cut weights of progeny and weight of the dam, and inputs were prean...

Increasing feed costs and the desire to improve environmental stewardship have stimulated renewed interest in improving feed efficiency of livestock, including that of US dairy herds. For instance, USDA cost projections for corn and soybean meal suggest a 20% increase over 2010 pricing for a 16% protein mixed dairy cow ration in 2011, which may lead to a reduction in cow numbers to maintain pro...

Variation in residual feed intake, that is, variation in feed intake in relation to liveweight (LW) and growth rate, was investigated using data from 540 progeny of 154 British Hereford sires, collected over ten 200-day postweaning performance tests conducted between 1979 and 1988. Residual feed intake (RFI ) was calculated for each test as the difference between Reg actual feed and expected fe...

A stochastic dynamic model of reproduction and a deterministic cow-herd economic simulation model were used to evaluate how management decisions and reproductive performance interact to influence net income in a cow-calf operation (1,000 cows) for 1 yr of production. The stochastic model was used to determine herd performance when length of breeding season (45, 70, or 120 d) interacted with thr...

The effect of calf weaning age on cow and calf performance and feed utilization was investigated over 2 yr. Multiparous, crossbred, lactating beef cows (n = 156) with summer-born calves were blocked by prebreeding BW, stratified by calf age, and assigned randomly to 1 of 4 treatments within strata. The experiment was a randomized complete block design with a 2 × 2 factorial arrangement of treat...

The effect of proximity to a dominant cow on a low-ranking cow's willingness to feed was assessed using choice tests. The main aim of the experiment was to determine the feeding space allowance at which the majority of subordinate cows would choose to feed on high-palatability food (HPF) next to a dominant cow rather than feeding alone on low-palatability food (LPF). Thirty Holstein-Friesian co...

A well-known dairy scientist once wrote that "compared with an effective environmental management system, manipulation of the cow's diet specifically for heat stress will have a relatively small effect on productivity" (Beede and Shearer, 1992). Indeed many dietary adjustments made during heat stress feeding are to compensate for reduced feed intake or to maintain physiologic homeostasis in the...