Maximize Your Forage Potential

Introduction:?

And that’s a wrap – my first calendar year on faculty at Ohio State and living in Ohio is coming to a close. Also, this will be the final 2024 edition of Some Udder Thoughts! Thanks to everyone who’s been reading and enjoying my musings.

In the new year, I may be changing when, how, and what content I deliver. If you haven’t and you still want to share your opinion – please fill out this form, it only takes a moment: https://forms.office.com/r/8LwVVSGGvP.

What’s new in dairy science??

Forage processing is an important fundamental for enhancing dairy farm profitability and feed efficiency. A new processing technology is under development and is showing promise when the forage is fed to dairy cows.

Researchers at the Dairy Forage Research Center compared conventionally chopped alfalfa haylage to mechanically processed alfalfa haylage. The haylage was included as 28.5% of diet DM and fed to 36 lactating Holstein cows. The theoretical length of cut for the conventional and mechanically processed alfalfa haylage was 10 and 22 mm, respectively, because the mechanically processed forage underwent additional processing steps that further reduced particle size.

Each treatment resulted in similar dry matter intake and fluid milk yield. Processing the alfalfa haylage with the mechanical processing increased milk fat yield by 80 g/d. This resulted in a 1.5 kg/d increase in energy-corrected milk yield.

Providing the mechanically processed forage also increased digestibility of nutrients across the board – the most dramatic increase was in fiber digestion. If you’re curious to learn more about this research, read the article here: https://doi.org/10.3168/jds.2024-25288.

Leadership, Growth, and Development.

I just finished a book called?War?by Bob Woodward, and there is one thing in the book I wanted to highlight. As one would expect, world leaders and military leaders often have difficult and uncomfortable conversations. How do you think they deal with those? How do they get through difficult topics so they can work together on other topics?

One very simple example of how to deal with challenges like difficult conversations came from Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. When working with other world leaders, Austin is considered a good listener and a person of decency – even when he must deliver challenging news. I think his success is because he listens and confronts things head-on. The quote from the book that Austin used was, “Acknowledged, next topic.”

He would hear out colleagues patiently and in their entirety. Then, calmly say it’s time to move on. It struck me because too often we try to belabor a point until everyone agrees or we just continue arguing out of frustration and emotion. I think a great deal of our communication could improve if we simply, patiently listened and then said, “Acknowledged, next topic.”

Final thoughts:

2024 was definitely a banner year for my wife and me – we started our careers, bought our first home, and took some fun trips! I hope your 2024 was equally rewarding. Take a moment and reflect on your year – and look for the good, because I bet there was plenty to be had! See you soon in 2025!

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