Why Do Some Cows Produce Milk with Less Feed?
Published on Mon, 01/19/2015 - 12:22pm
When GrowSafe first started developing feed intake measurement technology in early 2000, the price of corn was around $2.00 per bushel. When corn prices shot up over $5.00 per bushel in 2007 and then up to $8.00 in August of 2012, feed efficiency was on everybody’s agenda. “Today’s price hovering around $4.00 per bushel is still of concern” says Alison Sunstrum, Co-CEO of GrowSafe Systems, Ltd.
With feed costs about 80 percent of operating costs and 40 to 60 percent of total production costs, improving feed efficiency can mean big savings for dairy farms at any feed price, but there are many questions about what feed efficiency is and how it can be achieved.
Residual Feed Intake (RFI) was first identified by USDA researchers. The trait lay dormant on a commercial scale until GrowSafe introduced feed intake measurement systems practical enough for the beef cattle industry. RFI in beef cattle is the difference between an animal’s measured feed intake and its expected feed requirements for growth and maintenance. “Efficient” cattle are those that eat less feed than expected based on their body weight and performance and are termed as having a negative, or low, RFI. “Inefficient” cattle are those that eat more feed than expected based on their body weight and performance. These are termed positive, or high, RFI.
At the same time, measures of RFI in dairy cattle are similar to measures in beef cattle and are designed to assess an animal’s metabolic efficiency. In the context of lactating dairy cows, those with a low RFI have the ability to use less dietary energy relative to contemporaries for body maintenance and to achieve an equivalent level of milk production.
A recent groundbreaking study measuring Holstein cows at the USDA’s animal genomics and improvement laboratory was undertaken during the first 90 days of lactation to estimate the heritability and repeatability of RFI, minimum test duration for evaluating RFI in early lactation, and its association with other production traits. Data were obtained from 453 lactations (214 heifers and 239 multiparous cows) from 292 individual cows by USDA researchers using GrowSafe technology. This study estimated heritability to be moderate (0.36 ± 0.06), and repeatability was estimated at 0.56 across lactations. The heritability and repeatability of RFI suggests that similar to beef, an opportunity to improve feed efficiency through genetic selection could reduce feed costs, manure output, and greenhouse gas emissions associated with dairy production. (Connor 2013).
“A big challenge in dairy,” Sunstrum says, “is the cost of installing enough feed intake measurement technology to measure lactating dairy cows. A dairy cow requires a lot of measurement space and time to eat and about two to four times more technology to measure than a heifer. Although we have some commercial dairies measuring feed intake and we are working on reducing technology costs and making the process more dairy friendly, we have always thought that measuring a heifer’s feed intake might be key to improving dairy profitability.”
According to Sunstrum, evaluation of RFI in dairy heifers is a similar scenario to feed efficiency evaluation of growing beef cattle. The variability in dairy heifer RFI (for growth) seems to be similar in magnitude and character to that observed in growing beef animals. “We know that by measuring and selecting feed efficient heifers there is potential to reduce the total cost of heifer production. The big questions currently being answered in research is what the impacts of selecting for low RFI heifers will be on subsequent milk production, fertility, and health during lactation.”
Sunstum continues, “Similar to when we started out measuring beef cattle, there is no roadmap for RFI selection in dairy but the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, the second best time is now. This is our customer’s philosophy, and they lead the industry.”
Steve Munger at Eagle Pass Ranches near Highmore, South Dakota, talks about the changes to their breeding program as a result of feed intake technology brought to the market by GrowSafe Systems, Ltd. “We installed their feed intake system in 2007 and began identifying phenotypic differences in our sire groups immediately. The bulls we market today are more than 15 percent more efficient than the bulls we had sold prior to installing the system.”
Taking a look at the changes six years later, Munger says, “In 2013, every female bred at Eagle Pass Ranch finished in the top half of her feed intake contemporary group as a yearling. All other females entered our recip herd. Our feed efficiency selection capability is accelerating thanks to the accurate data produced by the GrowSafe system. In my opinion, no other person or business has done more to advance feed intake and individual animal management technology than GrowSafe Systems, Ltd. They are in a league of their own and are leading this industry into a new realm of beef cattle breeding.”
HOW GROWSAFE FEED INTAKE MEASUREMENT TECHNOLOGY WORKS
• Each animal is uniquely identified by an RFID ear tag.
• A GrowSafe RFID enabled feed trough is suspended on two load cells. Each second the animal is present at the feed trough the RFID tag is scanned and feed disappearance is measured at a resolution of 10 grams/.35 ounce.
• A GrowSafe data acquisition panel continuously communicates collected data wirelessly to a base station and a dedicated data acquisition computer located on farm.
• Data transmission is long range, up to 60 miles. Acquired data is processed automatically by software resident on the local computer calculating daily individual animal feed intake and feeding behavior for each animal. Data is automatically saved to the local computer.
• The GrowSafe DAQ computer is remotely connected to GrowSafe servers over the Internet enabling continuous remote monitoring, training, product support and multi-site analysis and benchmarking.
About GROWSAFE
GrowSafe engineers, computer and animal scientists have developed an intelligent individual animal measurement, monitoring, and management platform that acquires, analyses, optimizes and presents data from multiple biomentric and environmental sensors in real-time leveraging a standard personal computer connected to GrowSafe servers over the Internet (www.growsafe.com).
The way GrowSafe’s cloud-based decision management ecosystem improves farm profitability and livestock animal health and welfare, one animal at a time, through predictive and real time analysis using an integrated software and hardware platform has received international recognition. These include the 2014 Intel Canada Innovation Award, The 2013 Information Technology Association of Canada Award for Innovation, the Ingenious Award, the 2012 Canadian Manufacturers Innovation Award and the 2012 Dow AgroSciences Innovation in Agricultural Science ASTech Award.