Khorvash, M., Colombatto, D., Beauchemin, K. A., Ghorbani, G. R. and Samei, A. 2006. Use of absorbants and inoculants to enhance the quality of corn silage. Can. J. Anim. Sci. 86: 97–107. This study examined whether inoculants and various absorbent materials could be used during ensiling to reduce effluent losses and improve nutritive value of corn silage. Two corn forages were harvested: conve...

Alpine forages are assumed to have specific effects on ruminal digestion when fed to cattle. These effects were investigated in an experiment from two perspectives, either by using such forages as a substrate for incubation or as feed for a rumen fluid donor cow. In total, six 24-h in vitro batch culture runs were performed. Rumen fluid was collected from a non-lactating donor cow after having ...

The series of severe droughts between 2007 and 2012 resulted in substantial decreases in cattle numbers – and enterprises – in our region. Some of the impact of these droughts may have been offset if producers in the region had reliable, drought-resilient summer forages. For all of the benefits of tall fescue, it was never meant to provide our summer forage. After all, it is a coolseason grass....

cattle—as concentrated feeds, harvested forages, or a complementary grazing program— accounts for a significant portion of annual production costs in a cattle operation. To optimize productivity of today’s cattle operations, some supplemental nutrients will be required at critical periods during the annual production cycle. However, producers need to avoid unnecessarily compounding this cost by...

dairy herd. The quality of these forages greatly impacts profitability and performance, especially of the milking herd. Because of limited land base, labor, or personal preference, farmers may decide to purchase part or all of their herd’s forage needs. In other parts of the United States, corn silage and other chopped forages are sold and oftentimes delivered to the farm as needed. In Kentucky...

Raising dairy heifers from birth to calving has been found to comprise the second largest expense on the dairy farm towards the production of milk (Heinrichs, 1993) and therefore require a reasonably high level of attention on a commercial dairy farm. The focus of this paper will be feedstuffs, in particular limiting forages for the development of the rumen in the neonate, as well as a possible...

Forages comprise 35% to 70% of the dry matter (DM) in diets for lactating dairy cows. Variation in forage quality can impact DM intake, diet energy density, dietary grain and protein supplementation amounts, feed costs, lactation performance, and cow health. Forage quality is highly variable among and within forage types (NRC, 2001). Forage species, variety or hybrid, stage of maturity at harve...

The ‘big three’ forages in California, alfalfa hay, corn silage and small grain silage, are quantitatively the most important feed group on California dairy farms, as they comprise about 45% of all feeds consumed by California dairy animals. Thus, accurate estimation of their energy content is central to feed formulation that allows maximum animal performance and minimum environmental impact. W...

Objective Many livestock owners use the granular form of urea nitrogen during late summer and fall trying to increase forage growth for “stockpiled” forage. Livestock are then allowed to graze the “stockpile” at a later date when other forages no longer are growing or available. This practice extends the grazing season and reduces the need for higher priced stored feed. Urea is a common nitroge...

ABSTRACT The trial was conducted with the objective to evaluate fresh sugarcane as a replacement for corn silage on dry matter intake, ruminal parameters (pH, short chain fatty acids, and ammonia nitrogen concentration), degradation kinetics of forages concentrate in maintenance adult goats. Four nonlactating ruminally cannulated goats were used 4 × Latin square design 0, 33, 67, 100% by indepe...