NC1042: Management Systems to Improve the Economic and Environmental Sustainability of Dairy Enterprises (Rev. NC-1119)
Statement of Issues and Justification
The focus of NC-1119 is to provide a framework for collaborative research leading to dairy management strategies and systems to facilitate profitable and sustainable decisions by managers of both milking cow and youngstock enterprises. Dairy herd management is the discipline serving the purpose of concurrently ensuring that the resources are combined in such a way that the welfare of the individual dairy producer is maximized subject to the constraints imposed on the farms production and the publics quest for sustainable environmental stewardship.Dairy farming is a decision-intensive enterprise on a daily basis. It must rely on a holistic systems approach to defining options to maintain a profitable system that is accountable to consumers for animal well-being, environmental impacts, and product quality. The ability to plan and direct resources, including labor, will determine the profitability and sustainability of the dairy enterprise. Profitable decisions cannot be made without useful decision support systems, broadly defined as algorithms, decision aids, or management strategies, written or computerized. Bawden (1991) described the emergence of systems thinking and practice as the most useful paradigm for generating and transferring information to livestock producers.
The NC-1119 committee maintains that a systems paradigm will remain the most useful approach to help dairy managers make the best decisions. The revised project will develop decision support systems that address nutrition, management, environmental impacts, and economics of 1) calves and heifers; and 2) lactating and dry cows; and furthermore integrates these decision support systems using a 3) whole farm systems approach.
The project addresses specific issues in A) heifers, B) cows, and C) whole dairy farm systems.
A. Heifers
In the US, over 4 million replacement dairy heifers are raised annually. The cost of raising dairy replacements represents 15 to 25% of the total cost of managing a dairy operation. Dairy heifer replacement management research continues to address reduced costs, increased feed efficiency, improved health, reduced risk, and reduced nutrient losses to the environment.
Environmental implications of nutrient excretion of heifer rearing operations are still overlooked both on the farm and as distinct operations. This is especially pertinent as air quality issues associated with volatilization of nitrogen (N) become a concern of environmental compliance in all milk-producing states, not only in California, and add to the current environmental compliance criteria. There is a dearth of dairy heifer nutrition and management information related to improvement of dietary mineral utilization to reduce excretion into the environment, especially for phosphorus, which is becoming more prevalent with the vast resource of co-products from the ethanol industry. It is important to design feeding programs that improve feed utilization while reducing nutrient excretion. The NC-1119 project will develop and quantify feeding systems under a variety of management scenarios to accomplish this goal.
Decision support systems are needed for short and long-term analyses of management strategies for dairy heifer enterprises. Risk analysis will be critical to evaluate options and define optimal solutions. An important focus of NC-1119 is to help stakeholders recognize the quality control and variance factors that contribute to the assessment of risk as it relates to the dairy heifer enterprise. Variation in growth and well-being of dairy heifers is especially troublesome. Key quality control systems that must be addressed include breeding age and body weight; calving age and body weight; reproductive efficiency; colostrum feeding and transfer of passive immunity; morbidity and mortality; calf weaning criteria; vaccination programs; control of feed cost; and bunk score guidelines. The variance factors are animal health (pneumonia, respiratory diseases, intestinal pathogens, parasites, acidosis, hoof disease, hardware, trauma, and injury), calving dystocia, failure of passive immunity transfer, low birth weight, twinning, animal comfort, crowding, bunk space, and inbreeding. Researchers in NC-1119 propose to design collaborative work to improve quality control through reduction of variation and risk.
Replacement heifer rearing costs are second to feed costs in annual operating expenses on dairy farms. Total costs of raising dairy replacements is dependent on two major factors; costs directly associated with rearing heifers and the number of heifers reared. Main expenses include feed, labor, health, and housing. The cost of rearing heifers depends on the rate of growth, with faster growing heifers having higher daily feed costs, but perhaps lower total feed cost to day of calving. Despite the well-received Intuitive Cost of Production Analyses (ICPA) program developed to show economic costs and labor efficiencies of raising dairy heifer replacements on commercial Wisconsin farms, there is still a scarcity of economic data that can provide useful analyses of heifer rearing programs. The ICPA guidelines indicate large variation at all phases of production. To define the economic impacts or the least risky option for rearing heifers, management and productivity data need to be collected and analyzed using techniques such as partial budgets, linear and dynamic programming, and risk analysis. These management options lend themselves to both simple and complex analyses as demonstrated in previous dairy heifer research programs. Simple prescription feed bunk management can result in 10 to15% increases in feed efficiency of yearling beef steers. Such improvements in feed efficiency of dairy heifer replacements could reduce producer costs and decrease manure (nutrient) output. Requirements for length of feed bunk for dairy heifers have been established. Using a target-feeding concept has supported the economic efficiencies. Technologies of prescription feeding and bunk management have not been implemented or are not currently utilized in feeding dairy heifer replacements under different housing environments. Integration of pasture into a growing heifer operation provides another opportunity to reduce input costs. Precise environmental impacts of pasture-based heifer raising systems have not been clearly defined. In addition, organic dairying introduces important questions about raising dairy heifer replacements, with more constraints on techniques of controlling variation in quality.
An integral part of any successful heifer management system is to maintain a low disease incidence in calves from birth. The ability to segregate the neonatal calf from the dam and other animals that may harbor disease organisms (e.g., Johnes) presents an opportunity for avoidance. A number of studies addressed calf immunity, morbidity, mortality and nutritional management on calf growth and survival. There is still great variability in calf morbidity among herds. It is hypothesized that there are more complex biological processes in calves that contribute to this variation, processes that need to be elucidated. Knowledge of the social behavior of calves and their response to physiological or environmental stressors and management systems that reduce stress are important aspects of the dairy calf and heifer enterprise. One of the key areas of stress is the transition from individual to group feeding. Grouping of calves pre-weaning or immediately post-weaning has shown merit. Transportation and commingling of youngstock also present issues of bio-security and stressors that have implications for disease resistance and patterns of growth. The NC-1119 committee proposes to continue major focus on behavior and stress management of calves and heifers under a variety of nutritional and management systems.
B. Cows
The US is home to approximately 9 million dairy cows. Dairy cow management research continues to be needed in the areas of health, by-product utilization, and environmental impact.
The transition period from the non-lactating pregnant state to the lactating state is a key period in the lactation cycle. Yet, it also imposes challenges on dairy cows that may impair immune function, reduce feed intake, milk yield, and reproductive performance in the next lactation. Periparturient diseases and lameness are important determinants of premature culling. Fetal growth and lactogenesis exponentially increase nutrient requirements during late gestation when feed intake declines. Failure to meet nutrient requirements in late pregnancy can lead to negative energy balance, metabolic problems, and poor lactational performance post-calving. Implementing management and nutrition practices to reduce health disorders associated with parturition and early lactation are paramount for herd profitability. Whereas, transition cows and their management has been a focus in past NC-1119 projects, other new and innovative management and nutritional strategies for dairy systems are still needed.
Lameness is a major cost to dairy farms in the US and in other countries around the world. Lameness scoring within herds and cows is inexact and often not associated with lameness causing lesions. Effects of nutritional supplementation, footbath use and footbath composition need to be determined. Grouping strategies and use of hospital facilities and trimming chutes or auxiliary support for cows with hoof lesions should be studied. It will be the goal several states to improve a scoring system to define lameness and the cost and returns to making changes to management systems that influence the rate of lameness and morbidity of dairy heifers, dry cows, and lactating dairy animals.
Corn co-product availability and the availability of other co-products from bio-fuel production are projected to increase dramatically over the next decade. Challenges to the greater use of bio-fuel co-products in dairy diets include controlling variation between and within co-product source. The disproportionate share of phosphorus (P), nitrogen (N), and the increasing proportion of corn (Zein) protein with an amino acid profile which is not suited for milk production, all present challenges to making efficient use of these co-products as dairy feeds. Other challenges of feeding dried distillers grains and solubles (DDGS) and wet distillers grains with solubles (WDGS) in dairy cow diets include correctly characterizing nutrient composition, correctly formulating them into dairy cow diets, and developing storage methods for wet byproduct feeds. Much of the original research about feeding these co-products was reported through NC-1119 during the past five years (2001-2006).
Much is yet to be learned about provision of specific amounts and quality of nutrients and synchrony of supply to optimize utilization. The NRC (2001) identified major gaps about provision of certain dietary nutrients (e.g., mineral elements, carbohydrates, and protein) and feeding of dairy cattle. NRC (2001) did not incorporate physically effective neutral detergent fiber (peNDF) into the model because of lack of uniform methodology for measuring peNDF and paucity of accurate values for the wide range of dairy feeds (particularly byproducts). It is necessary to determine peNDF values of byproducts and their interactions with different forages. Dairy enterprises also often purchase waste products (e.g., feed byproducts or co-products) from other industries. We need to accurately model animal responses and economic and environmental consequences of feeding byproducts to dairy cattle to develop profitable and sustainable feeding systems.
Improvement in protein utilization in the rumen and more accurate determination of metabolizable amino acid requirements can result in greater milk and milk protein yields. Of even greater importance in future dairy systems will be improved dietary protein utilization to reduce N loss to the environment. Many U.S. dairy operations are facing federal and state environmental constraints that are expected to be major challengers of future milk production and profitability. Nitrogen and P excretion can be reduced by feeding closer to animals nutrient requirement. Management strategies such as tighter grouping of animals to pinpoint nutrient requirements can reduce N excreted. New approaches will factor in variance (nutritional risk) in feed composition and will quantify biological and economic components to develop an objective function suitable for whole farm system economic optimization while minimizing P and N excesses.
C. Farm
Whole dairy farm management research remains needed to enhance understanding and application of farm records, and reduce undesirable impacts on the environment. In dairy farms of the future, a system to integrate data from production, financial and management databases into routine decisions will be necessary to optimize efficiency and economic sustainability. Since the start of this project, several member states and developed and assessed financial databases. These databases provide the framework for further expansion and development of financial benchmarks. As energy costs continue to increase, their impact on management decisions for profitability and sustainability become more dominant in the rank of inputs. The creation of a database for total farm energy budgets and usage is needed to accurately evaluate alternatives. Niche markets or alternative management schemes (organic, on farm processing, electricity generation, grazing, and climate (Carbon) trading) have been proposed for sustainability of dairy enterprises. These enterprises need base line data and financial benchmarks also.
Dairy producers need to make daily decisions about whether and when to treat, inseminate, cull, dry-off, raise, or purchase dairy cows. They need to simultaneously consider a cows future biological performance, milk and cow prices, and herd constraints such nutrient balance or availability of labor to make the best decisions day after day. These future estimates are subject to seasonality and price and production risks. Directly associated with these complex tasks are questions about the economic value of proposed changes in management, such as reproductive management. Dairy producers and allied industries have indicated that they need support in making these complex planning decisions to improve their efficiency of production, profitability, and for the dairy industry to remain economically and environmentally sustainable. The computer programs developed in this project will enable evaluation of financial implications of the direct and indirect effects of various management options, and assist dairy producers with making effective decisions.
Finally, dairy farms need to make sure they do not cause undesirable impacts on the environment.
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