Dairy Cow Ration Change (95)

In this weeks video, I'm talking about a recent ration change we made for our late lactation cows.
**COWS & CO CREAMERY: If you're interested in placing a CHEESE order, they do ship nationwide. They currently are unable to ship gelato. The link is included below!
cowsandcocreamery.com/collect...
If you have any questions about this week's video, leave them in the comments, and I will post a Q&A video on Sunday if needed. As always, thanks for watching!
________________________________________________________________________
My name is Piet van Bedaf, together with my wife and my parents, we own and operate a family dairy farm in North Dakota. We are originally from the Netherlands, and immigrated to Canada first and then the United States in 2008. Subscribe and follow along to see the ins and outs of a modern day dairy farm!
Camera I Use: amzn.to/3TPNlPK
Amazon Storefront: www.amazon.com/shop/pietvanbe...
*As an Amazon affiliate, at no additional cost to you, I do receive a small commission on products purchased through my links. Your support is greatly appreciated!
e-mail: [e-mail]
Facebook: / vanbedafdairy
#pietvanbedaf
#dairyfarmer
#vanbedafdairy

[@user-hm8ol4tj9i]

Nice looking cows looks like your little guy loves the cows.

[@pollyturner47]

Your cows always look so contented. You can tell that you are very invested in their health and well-being

[@robcooper5813]

Well done Piet on making 10k subs, keep up the good videos. It is interesting to know how you manage your different groups. Hope the changes does save you some money. I think I read somewhere a cow drops 3 to 7% when they change groups. It will be interesting to see if you notice drops with the extra group change.

[@pietvanbedaf-nddairyfarmer9047]

Thank you! That is something I'm going to try and monitor. We should be able to tell from the activity monitors the cows have on if the pen change affects their feed intake. I'm thinking it won't have a big impact since they're near the end of their lactation.

[@vincentdevos8982]

Glad to see yhe ' junior manager ' around ! He's grown !

[@alisciamarotta3888]

Congratulations on well deserved 10K, please keep them coming. Great video, always nice to see your little boy....memories been made

[@pietvanbedaf-nddairyfarmer9047]

Thank you!

[@davidkimmel4216]

Your operation is so interesting to fallow. Thank you

[@TheVollgasGangsta]

Hi Piet, Maybe you can talk about the nutrience count of your crops. Im interestet in the differences between sorghum and corn or barley. Maybe you got some feed value tests. Thank's for your interesting videos 👍

[@pietvanbedaf-nddairyfarmer9047]

I could talk about this in a future video. Corn silage is preferred out of the 3 for me because of tonnage and starch. The sorghum we chopped last year was around 80 relative feed value, the barley around 140 rfv. They're good forages but don't really compare to corn silage as far as milk produced per acre of crop.

[@garlandwarren9148]

He sure is growing

[@chrisdillon4164]

It’s amazing the production you are achieving, if you have cows still giving 100 LBS per day on 2X milking near dry off, what is your top cows producing at peak production ?? Well done on your 10 K subscription, I really enjoyed your videos and the honest, informative content.

[@pietvanbedaf-nddairyfarmer9047]

They wouldn't be at 100lbs on 2x milking but moving those cows into a 2x milking late lactation pen with a late lactation ration is what I want to avoid. Our top producing cows are producing 135 to 140 lbs of milk per day. Thank you!

[@CranialAccess]

You take extremely good care to of all your cows. In the interest of consumers, are you using any MRNA vaccines, and would you actually know. We’re in upstate N Y and very concerned about your local farms protein delivery and the effects of MRNA vaccines on our food supply. Food for thought.,.,

[@pietvanbedaf-nddairyfarmer9047]

Thank you! We're not using any MRNA vaccines.

[@vitaliykramarenko8131]

👍

[@patrickburgmeier7902]

Piet, I am wondering if you have a water treatment plant on your farm? To treat for E Coli and fecal chloroform bacteria and nitrates in the water? I know that a cow will milk more if she can drink more. The best but the most expensive system by far, is reverse osmosis. But there are other systems out there.

[@pietvanbedaf-nddairyfarmer9047]

We don't do any water treatment on the farm, we purchase our water from the rural water district.

[@richardmarshall5960]

Great video! Also great to see you hit 10k subscribers. Might mention in your videos if viewers have not subscribed to please do so. It is estimated half of regular viewers haven’t subscribed. I was watching another KZbinr, A Dairy on the Prairie, mention about having to dehorn some of her Holstein calves. I was surprised as I thought Holsteins didn’t have horns. Do any of your Holstein calves have to be dehorned?

[@pietvanbedaf-nddairyfarmer9047]

Thank you! Yes, we also dehorn our calves. The majority of holsteins grow horns, this could change in the future as high value non horned holstein genetics become more available.

[@NextLevelFarmerDotCom]

When you change a feed recipe for a group of cows substituting something like corn silage for some other feed ingredient do you make the change abruptly or do you blend some corn silage with the new replacement ingredient for a day or two?

[@pietvanbedaf-nddairyfarmer9047]

If possible, we will make the change over several days. If we're going to a different silage pile, for example, we'll blend the old pile with the new pile for a few days.

[@karlherzog3979]

Are you talking forage sorghum or sorghum sudangrass? We have fed sorghum sudangrass and we really like feeding that.

[@pietvanbedaf-nddairyfarmer9047]

What we chopped last year was bmr sorghum sudangrass. It turned out good, but the feed value isn't very high. We should've harvested it sooner.

[@karlherzog3979]

@@pietvanbedaf-nddairyfarmer9047 when we did it we tried harvesting half of it at 4 foot and the other half when it was heading out. None of it ever tested above 120 rfv but the cows really responded in higher intakes and components. I don’t think the test results reflect how good the feed is.

[@johnhatt1219]

So the cost of feed is custom chopping where the cost is what you’re saying

[@pietvanbedaf-nddairyfarmer9047]

I'm not sure I fully understand your question, but when I'm talking about feed cost I'm including all ingredients. Forage (silage, alfalfa, barley), byproducts (canola meal, corn distillers, wheat midds, etc), and mineral and vitamin mix. On forages that would include cost of harvest, store and the feed itself.

[@johnhatt1219]

@@pietvanbedaf-nddairyfarmer9047 so you are saying the cost of having it done by a custom harvesting crew cost you more

[@user-zu2bw7ig5v]

12:35 cow #6908 😂

[@sklsout]

👍🥪🇺🇸