Perspectives - Nutrition News

New feeding study helps dairy farmers increase heifer efficiency

(Sponsored by the Corn Marketing Program of Michigan)

Reprinted from Michigan Farm News, December 15, 2001, Page 14, Volume 78, Number 20

Rearing replacement heifers accounts for about 20 percent of a dairy farmer’s expenses. According to Miriam Weber Nielsen, a dairy science researcher at Michigan State University, minimizing the cost of growing heifers can greatly enhance producer profits.

"A dairy animal is an investment," Weber Nielsen says. "But she doesn't start returning any money to the producer until she calves and begins lactation. The goal is to get her to that point as soon as possible."

With an investment from the Corn Marketing Program of Michigan, Weber Nielsen and Michael VandeHaar, coinvestigator, set out to uncover the secret to increasing body weight gain of heifers without sacrificing lean mass in order to help them reach calving body weight sooner. "If we help an animal give birth earlier, we can cut out 30 to 60 days of nonproductive life," she says.

Heifers often calve at 25 to 26 months of age. Weber Nielsen says an efficient feeding program can decrease the amount of time it takes for a heifer to reach the appropriate body size for calving thereby helping producers become more efficient. "The quicker a producer can grow heifers, up to a certain point, the more animals they can put through their operation each year," she says. "We wanted to see just how efficiently we could grow young calves."

For most production systems, Weber Nielsen believes dairy farmers should concentrate on calving heifers by 24 months. "If we can grow heifers faster, we should be able to cut that down to 22 months," she says.

The goal is to find the right formula that fattens calves up enough to increase productivity without pushing weight gain so far it negatively effects the development of mammary tissues. This intricate balance isn't easy to achieve. "We don't know why, but other studies have shown that increasing energy intake in calves four to nine months old reduces mammary development," Weber Nielsen says. "We wanted to take it one step further and see what would happen if we accelerated the growth in younger animals."

To do so, Weber Nielsen's research team upped the corn grain consumption in two-  to 14-week-old calves by two pounds per day. "This should decrease the age of heifers at puberty and breeding while enabling normal mammary development," she says.

Weber Nielsen will complete her studies next spring when she investigates the mammary tissue of calves fed the accelerated diet. However, initial results show calves can grow at a faster rate without depositing a lot of body fat. "When fed the right ration, calves eat more corn and develop more lean body mass," Weber Nielsen says. "You already have a larger animal by three and a half months of age."

This is good news for corn growers and dairy farmers alike. "A rapid growth program for dairy heifers before the age of 14 weeks has potential to increase corn consumption in Michigan alone by 1.5 million bushels per year," Weber Nielsen says. "We hope to foster the continued consumption of about 30 million bushels of corn grain and 1 million tons of corn silage by Michigan dairy cattle ever year."

Weber Nielsen says dwindling federal budgets make support from producer-funded groups like the Corn Marketing Program of Michigan increasingly important. "It's very tough to find funding for applied studies," she says. "We would not have been able to conquer this project without CMPM's generous support. Their interest in the project allowed us to investigate potential ways to improve dairy heifer growth and benefit Michigan corn producers at the same time."

Headquartered in Lansing, CMPM is a legislatively established statewide program utilizing one-cent per bushel of Michigan corn sold. CMPM strongly believes today’s research investments are tomorrow’s value-added markets. Investments are also made in areas of education, market development and promotions in an effort to enhance the economic position of Michigan corn producers.