Activity vs. Achievement?

Introduction:

What is better than getting a mix of students, veterinarians, and professors in a room to talk about nutrition? Not much. I had a great time this last week at American Association of Bovine Practitioners teaching vets the fundamentals of dairy nutrition. It motivated me to explore some good applied nutrition research.

What’s new in dairy science?

I spend a lot of time thinking about feeding cows in ways that are outside the norms we see in the field. Under ideal circumstances, diets usually contain corn silage, grass hay, or alfalfa silage with various concentrates to meet energy and protein demands. Anyone involved in feeding dairy cattle knows that we very rarely have ideal circumstances. How do we feed cows when we have less-than-ideal circumstances?

One example is that weather is growing more variable, especially precipitation patterns. Increases in extreme weather will render forage quality and quantity challenged. We must be able to feed cows effectively under a wide range of scenarios. One strategy explored by Dr. Kononoff’s team at the University of Nebraska replaced alfalfa hay with a mixture of wheat straw and distiller’s grains.

Their experiment demonstrated that including DDGS at 12% of the diet and wheat straw as 4% of the diet matched milk production and feed efficiency of a diet including the equivalent amount of alfalfa hay.

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Don’t be afraid to get creative with your ration formulation if the situation requires it. Cows need nutrients, not individual ingredients!

Read the whole paper here: https://doi.org/10.3168/jds.2024-25024

Leadership, Growth and Development?

I have been absolutely consumed with a quote from John Wooden lately – “Don’t mistake activity for achievement”.

Through graduate school and starting my new role as an Assistant professor, I have often confused busyness with productivity. It’s an easy trap to fall into because we often assume those doing the most tasks or saying yes to the most things are the most productive or accomplished. Is all the busyness associated with concrete achievement? I’d contest that those two things do not necessarily go hand in hand. I’d go so far as to say those who are most focused, eliminate the excesses, and maintain clear focus on the most important priorities achieve more.

I found out that I had once again fallen into this trap. I found myself getting bogged down into a lot of wasted motion. I found myself getting to the end of the day having checked things off of my list but not having made progress toward my most important goals. I was feeling short term accomplishment from having completed small tasks but what good did that really achieve? Not much. Just because you’re doing a lot, checking things off a list, or moving around doesn’t mean you’re achieving anything.

Focus on the big things and stay focused on them! Don’t get dragged down into “busy” work just for the sake of it. Your activity should serve you and your goals – if you stay focused your activity can become achievement!

Final thoughts:

The next chapter of dairy nutrition will be about creativity and feed quality. Spending time at AABP has reminded me that we need to keep learning how these nutrients can improve animal production and animal health. There is always more research to be done!