Dairy Herd news source   |   Updated: February 1, 2012

Inconsistency in delivery times is one of 12 factors that contribute to TMR variation, says Tom Oelberg with Diamond V. “Delivery times are important as far as getting feed delivered consistently to cows so they have a consistent amount of weigh backs,” Oelberg said during a recent DAIReXNET webinar on managing TMR variability. “We were on a dairy where we did an audit for three consecutive days. The second day, they forgot to plug the tractor in and it delayed feeding by two hours,” Oelberg said. “On the third day, we noticed large amounts of weigh backs at this dairy, and a light came on for me that these cows simply had less time to eat.”

It’s very critical that the TMR be delivered to each pen as consistently as possible each day, Oelberg stressed. Here are Oelberg’s 12 factors that can affect the consistency of the TMR:

1 Overfilling.
2 Mixing times.
3 Equipment wear.
4 Hay quality and processing.
5 Unlevel TMR loading.
6 Pre-batch variation.
7 Grain particle size variation.
8 I ngredient inclusion amount.
9 I ngredient mix order.
10 Loading liquids.
11 Delivery times.
12 S ilage face management.

---