Feeding farm business dreams
It’s a blend of art and science.
Igniting milk production with focus on forage
For two consecutive years, Munk Dairy has been averaging over six pounds of combined fat and protein from their 850-milking Holsteins. However, this hasn’t always been the case for the dairy operated by the father-son duos of Sid and Braden Munk and Shane and Jason Munk. Read more about their journey in this post.
Better nutrition meant money on animal health
Calves just never seemed to get started right at Stony Brook Farms in Eastern New York. Respiratory disease was almost part of the SOP, and the dairy was spending a lot on vaccines and treatment. Once Gary Moore from Cargill got involved, calf health improved and the drug bill went down.
It all started with an analysis of what we had been doing
“It was pretty easy to see from Cargill’s analysis of our forages and feeds that our margins after purchased feed costs were much slimmer than the norm,” says Troy Sellen, Operating Partner at Valley Line Dairy. “This encouraged me to discuss with our custom harvester, agronomist, and internally with my father and team on what our goals should be for forage production.” Read more about Valley Line Dairy’s approach to improvements through analysis, data and partnerships in this blog post.