International Dairy Meet

Biography

Biography: Sonia Rodríguez Jiménez

Abstract

The objective of this study is to improve feed efficiency and decrease variations while preparing the Close-up (CU) recipe on dairy farms. Feeding management records (FeedWatch7.0) from twelve consecutive months were extracted from 26California dairies ranging in size from 1,100 to 6,900. A total of 25dairies had records of CU recipe. Close-up recipe was prepared daily either one (n=24) or two (n=1) times. The median number of ingredients included in the CU recipe ranged from three to five(n=18) and six to nine(n=7).The most commonly used ingredients in CU recipes were corn silage(n=24), alfalfa(n=23), rolled corn(n=19), premix(n=17), liquids(n=10), mineral-vitamins(n=7),oat hay(n=7) and anionic salts(n=6).The tolerance level(TL) assigned to the various ingredients ranged from 0kg to 135kg and represented a deviation from the median formulated target for the various ingredients across dairies of: 0%(11.1%), >0-2(15.9%), >2-5%(27.6%), >5-10%(17.2%), >10-20%(18.4%) and >20%(9.8%).Deviation from the target weight for the various ingredients across dairies was: 0%(11.2%),>0-2%(14.9%),>2-5%(25.5%),>5-10%(18.0%) and >10%(30.4%).The deviation from target weight was >10% on 49 ingredient types from 20 dairies [alfalfa(n=11), rolled corn(n=8), mineral-vitamins(n=4), corn silage(n=3), canola(n=3), oat hay(n=3), yeast(n=2), straw(n=2), liquids(n=2), oyster shell(n=2), other forages(n=2) and other ingredients(n=7)].The median close-up recipe weight represented 17.5 to 45.3% of the median high cow recipe weight, with the exception of one dairy that was 92%.However, there was a high variation within dairy on the close-up recipe weight, with an IQR(Q3- Q1) of 3.2% to 34.9%.Daily feedings were delayed by at least 2h ranging from 0.05 to 2%(n=9), 2 to 5%(n=5), 5 to 13%(n=6) and 13 to 28% (n=3).