News from the Dairy Industry 40,000 lbs. Annually, Really The goal of 40,000 lb. Producers must reduce cow stress and increase feed intake to attain this goal.
Housing remains a critical factor in reducing stress.
He predicts future biosensors will include conductivity, milk temperature and somatic cell count, hormone measurements with adoption of electronic identification of animals, and automated measurements, such as activity and body weight. These systems will be able to detect problems earlier by comparing trends and averages. Other keys to high production are maintaining a uniform diet, avoiding abrupt management changes and using a large variety of ingredients in diets. Top production must start with top genetics, but neither using the highest Net Merit AI bulls or cloning 50,000-lb. For the highest production, he suggests breeding all high-producing cows to proven bulls above the 80th percentile for Net Merit.