PSU Herd IOFC –July 2012

July was fairly uneventful in respect to ration adjustments or forage changes. The herd stayed on the same forage sources for the entire month. The one minor change was reducing the corn silage dry matter by two pounds and increasing the hay-crop forage by the same amount on the 24th.  This minor adjustment should allow the herd to stay on corn silage until the middle or end of September.  The hope is that early corn is ready to harvest the end of August or beginning of September with at least two weeks of fermentation. The goal is to avoid having the herd switched over to a 100% hay-crop forage diet.
It was interesting to evaluate how the herd performed this July versus last year especially on very different rations. Cows are receiving a heavy hay-crop forage diet versus last July’s heavy BMR corn silage diet.  The herd is at 188 days in milk which is identical to last July. Based on the historic weather data, July 2011 in State College had 10 days over 90oF compared to five days this July. The one significant difference was the evenings remained relatively cool even though July was very hot. Last July during the worst of the heat wave dry matter intakes dropped to 48 pounds and milk production to 70 pounds during the last week in the month. This year milk production remained steady at 82 pounds and the average dry matter intake was 57 pounds compared to last July of 54 pounds.
In the past we would experience the fat test dropping below 3.50% and struggling to get it to rebound. This year the components have been consistent and fat percent has been holding around 3.55% to 3.60%.  The MUNs for July were consistently low, averaging 7.18 mg/dl. My suspicion was the first cut alfalfa haylage was more grass than alfalfa. The total mixed ration was sent out for analysis. Starch (24.5%), neutral detergent fiber (34%) and the minerals came back right on target. The only exception was protein, which tested 14% on a dry matter basis versus the expected of 15.5%. The following link shows what the alfalfa and grass silage look like as well as the TMR being fed to the herd,
Feed costs per cow did take a drop compared to June mostly from the reduced dry matter intake, which I think is more a reflection of the high NDF hay-crop forage than the hot weather. Maintaining a low protein diet during the summer also helped to control feed costs and so far has not shown to be a detriment to animal performance. For the month of July the herd averaged 82 pounds with a 3.59 % fat, 2.93 % protein,  256,000 SCC and 7.18 mg/dl MUN.

IOFC Results

IOFC Graph