March 2003
Your 2003 DHIA District Meetings
Notice
All members are welcome to attend the District Meeting. If you are a member,
you are eligible to vote. Agenda items will include a review of the audit for
2002, election of delegates to the Annual Meeting scheduled for March 27,
election of directors for 3-year terms in districts noted below, and new and old
business.
Friday March 7 North East @ Embers in Milaca
Wednesday
March 12 West Central @ Holiday Inn in Alexandria
Thursday March 13 Central @
Lab in Sauk Centre
* elections
All district meetings begin with
registration at 11:15 with the meeting beginning at 11:30 Lunch is provided for
members. The Barron Washburn meeting is also the local annual meetings, so
please refer to that notice for details. Call 800-827-3442 for answers, or to
make a reservation.*
MMPA Annual Convention, March 10-11th,
2003
St. Cloud Civic Center
Dear Fellow Dairy Producers:
We
are very pleased that Governor Pawlenty has agreed to join us in St. Cloud for
our 26th Annual Convention and we sure hope you will be there too. Think
of it as a learning vacation - bring your spouse - have some fun and find out
what Minnesota Milk is all about. Working
together, learning together and acting together MMPA will create a brighter
future for all the hard-working people that depend on Minnesota's dairy industry
for their way of life.
Sincerely,
Delbert Mandelko, President
MMPA
| Don't miss - Minnesota's Premier Dairy
Event: |
| *First Class Exhibits & Equipment Displays |
|
* Cutting Edge Educational Opportunities |
| * Meet the Region's Top Dairy Producers |
|
* Hear from Respected Industry Leaders |
| * Be Part of the Solution! |
|
|
| Convention Highlights: |
| Luncheon Keynote Speaker: GOVERNOR TIM
PAWLENTY |
| Minnesota Milk's Dairy College |
|
MMPA Business Meeting |
| Trade show: Monday and Tuesday |
|
Robotic Milker |
| Breakout sessions: |
| Profit from Improved Milk Quality |
|
Pricing your Milk for 2003 and Beyond |
| Making Partnerships Work |
|
Making Multi-Generational Systems Work |
| Get the Most out of Your Feed Shed |
|
Standard Operating Procedures |
| Make Money Producing Top Forages |
|
Grazing Systems that Work |
For more information MMPA web
site: www.mnmilk.org or call 877.577.0741*
Outstanding DHIA Service Award - Jo
Pedersen
DHIA service is as good as the person who shows up on your farm each sample
day. They represent the top 6% of the DHIA field staff.
Jo Pedersen, from
Murdock, has been a Field Representative in West Central MN since March 1982 and
is currently testing 35 herds with about 3,000 cows. Her commitment to providing
good service shows in her average test interval of 33.4 days and in the short
time it takes for dairymen to get their Representative after testing. Jo has
always been a person that will help out when help is needed. When other Field
Representative have quit or retired, she has been there to step in to relief
test or take over herds as needed.
Jo is always ready to learn new things
or provide new services for the dairymen she works with. She has had training
for taking milk samples for mastitis culturing and last fall attended a Milk
Quality meeting put on by the University of MN in Alexandria. Last spring
Jo arranged a software users meeting in her own home and even provided a pizza
lunch for the dairymen who attended!
On behalf of Minnesota DHIA and the
dairymen you have served so well over the past 21 years, THANK YOU Jo, and
Congratulations for an award well deserved!*
Don't Waste Your Protein
Sandra Godden, College of Veterinary Medicine, University of
Minnesota
Jim Linn, Department of Animal Science, University of
Minnesota
Feeding excess protein to dairy cows is expensive and wasteful. Protein or
nitrogen fed in excess of requirements for body maintenance, milk production,
growth, and reproduction must be excreted. Excretion of excess nitrogen from the
body means loss of income and is of environmental concern. Milk urea nitrogen
(MUN) is an inexpensive and easily conducted test to help assess protein feeding
to dairy cows.
WHERE MUN COMES FROM
The crude protein (CP) you feed
your cows has three fates:
- It can be broken down by the microorganisms in
the rumen to ammonia.
- It can bypass the rumen and be broken down into amino
acids and absorbed from the small intestine.
- It can bypass the cow entirely
and be excreted in the manure.
Some of the ammonia released in the rumen
from CP breakdown can be recaptured by the microorganisms to form bacterial CP.
Bacterial CP then leaves the rumen and is digested in the small intestine, the
same as the true proteins in feedsthat bypass the rumen.
Ammonia not
recaptured by the microorganisms is absorbed into the blood, where it is
transported to the liver for conversion into urea. Amino acids and other small
protein fractions absorbed from the small intestine in excess of requirements
are also converted to urea in the liver. Urea is a nontoxic compound for
handling excess nitrogen in the body until it can be filtered through the kidney
and excreted in the urine.
Urea in the blood, referred to as blood urea
nitrogen (BUN), also has three potential fates:
- It can be recycled back to
the rumen through saliva and directly through the rumen wall. Because urea is a
relatively small molecule and has a high affinity for water, it rapidly flows
back into the rumen, where it can be converted into microbial protein.
- It
can be removed by the kidney and excreted in the urine. The amount of nitrogen
or urea in the urine is directly proportional to the concentration of BUN.
-
Because urea has a high affinity for water, as BUN passes through the mammary
gland, it readily diffuses into milk to achieve an equal concentration of urea
between blood and milk. Milk urea nitrogen (MUN) levels are similar to BUN
levels, but usually lag behind peak BUN values by about two
hours.
MEASURING MUN
Urea can be measured in either blood or milk.
However, it's cheaper and easier to collect milk samples than blood samples.
Milk samples may be submitted as bulk tank or individual cow samples. The
difference is that a bulk tank sample doesn't allow for evaluation of groups fed
different rations. Given the relatively low cost of analysis, we recommend that
MUN be analyzed for individual cows. MUN may be measured in milk samples
routinely collected on DHI test day. Test costs in Minnesota range from 11.5 to
16 cents per cow, depending on which lab you use and the test method
used.
INTERPRETING MUN RESULTS
Because MUN levels are affected by a
large number of cow-related factors, including age, stage of lactation, health
status, water consumption, and dry matter intake, cows fed the same ration often
have very different MUN values. For this reason, we recommend you use MUN
results from a minimum of 10 cows for diagnosing potential feeding problems.
Don't try to draw conclusions from one or just a few cows' MUN
values.
There is diurnal (day-to-night) variation in MUN, with p.m. tests
often averaging 1 to 2 mg/100 ml higher than a.m. tests. This factor may create
considerable test-to-test variation, making it difficult to know when important
changes in feeding management have occurred. Test routinely to establish a
baseline so you know what is normal variation for the herd.
Herd or group
average MUN levels for Holstein, Ayrshire, and Guernsey herds are commonly in
the range of 10 to 18 mg/100 ml. Jersey and Brown Swiss breeds tend to run about
2 mg/100 ml higher. New York and Pennsylvania data suggest a herd average target
range of 10 to 16 mg/100 ml. While these averages may be used as a reference for
interpreting MUN values, it should be understood that the MUN value for optimum
milk production and health of an animal has not been defined. Dairy producers
and their nutrition advisors should establish a baseline for their herd and
monitor changes in MUN to determine if feeding changes have occurred or problems
exist.
WAYS TO USE MUN
Use MUN to assess the amount of protein in the
diet. A high MUN value may mean you're feeding more protein than the cows
require for their production level.
If the amount of protein fed is
correct, a high MUN value could mean you're feeding excess rumen degradable
protein--urea, soybean meal, alfalfa haylage,or other readily degradable sources
of protein. Replace some of the highly degradable rumen protein feeds with a
slower or less degradable protein source.
A third option is to evaluate
the amount of rumen degradable carbohydrate sources in relation to degradable
protein sources. If the rumen bacteria do not have a readily available source of
carbohydrate when ammonia is being produced from the breakdown of feed proteins,
the bacteria will not be efficient at capturing ammonia and converting it into
bacterial protein.
SUMMARY
Single MUN tests are relatively useless in
solving feeding problems. Establish a MUN baseline over four to six months and
evaluate changes in relation to the baseline values. If conducted routinely, and
if a good baseline level for MUN has been established in the herd, MUN tests may
be a management tool to improve protein utilization efficiency in dairy cows,
decreasing feed costs and nitrogen excretion.*
Somatic Cell Counts less than
100,000!
Congratulations to the following 46 members - your February Somatic Cell Counts
were under 100,000. We also had another 102 herds with 150,000 or less.
Thank you for your quality to the dairy industry!
| ROLLING GREEN HOLSTEINS |
--31,000-- |
OAKLAND |
| |
MERTON + TRUDY NELSON 2 |
--80,000-- |
ELLENDALE |
| ROBERT SLATER |
--37,000-- |
MAHTOWA |
| |
MARK KLEHR |
--81,000-- |
BELLE PLAINE |
| DAVID BUCK |
--52,000-- |
DENNISON |
| |
JOE AND ED WILLENBRING |
--81,000-- |
RICHMOND |
| HILLVIEW-SHORTHORN |
--58,000-- |
FERGUS FALLS |
| |
URBAN BROS |
--82,000-- |
NEW LONDON |
| SELKE FARMS |
--62,000-- |
DAKOTA |
| |
CURVECREST FARMS II |
--85,000-- |
GLENCOE |
| JOHN KLEHR |
--63,000-- |
WINTHROP |
| |
GARY + LIZ LEHNERTZ |
--85,000-- |
PLAINVIEW |
| STEVE AND SANDY SIEGLE |
--64,000-- |
COLOGNE |
| |
BRUCE HANSON |
--87,000-- |
RICE LAKE, WI |
| DELBERT KRUEGER |
--65,000-- |
ALEXANDRIA |
| |
JEFF BLENKER |
--88,000-- |
ALBANY |
| CHUCK LEUTHOLD |
--68,000-- |
ELLSWORTH |
| |
STEVE MARTIN |
--89,000-- |
FINLAYSON |
| MICHAEL AND KRIS BANSE |
--69,000-- |
EITZEN |
| |
LESTER SCHULZ & SONS |
--90,000-- |
GLENCOE |
| LEROY DROPPS |
--69,000-- |
MILACA |
| |
BOB & TERRI KETCHUM |
--91,000-- |
UTICA |
| CHARLES-DOUG ARVIDSON |
--70,000-- |
VERGAS |
| |
SCHUMANN FARM |
--92,000-- |
EYOTA |
| RICHARD WOLD |
--72,000-- |
BOYD |
| |
JOHN WUOLLET |
--93,000-- |
NEW YORK MILLS |
| AL + MARK SCHMITT |
--74,000-- |
RICE |
| |
MIKE & PAT BERNECKER |
--93,000-- |
PRAIRE FARM,WI |
| KOWALSKI DAIRY |
--75,000-- |
PELICAN RAPIDS |
| |
D & J DAIRY |
--94,000-- |
PAYNESVILLE |
| GATEWOOD FARM |
--75,000-- |
WILLMAR |
| |
GARY SMITH |
--94,000-- |
HERMAN |
| MIKE HAGLUND |
--77,000-- |
KERKHOVEN |
| |
WAYNE AND WADE ATHEY |
--95,000-- |
GRACEVILLE |
| KEVIN ANDERSON |
--77,000-- |
BATTLE LAKE |
| |
GREEN MEADOW JERSEY |
--96,000-- |
NORWOOD |
| DOUG + BRENDA STANGL |
--77,000-- |
PIERZ |
| |
DENNIS GRANSEE |
--96,000-- |
SANBORN |
| LOWELL BAKKEDAHL |
--78,000-- |
SARGEANT |
| |
NOVACEK DAIRY |
--96,000-- |
GREENBUSH |
| LARRY BRAEM |
--78,000-- |
SACRED HEART |
| |
CURVECREST FARMS |
--96,000-- |
GLENCOE |
| GILMAN HALBAKKEN |
--79,000-- |
ST CHARLES |
| |
MARK NEWTON |
--98,000-- |
ROTHSAY |
| BEVENDALE FARMS 2 |
--80,000-- |
GREENISLE |
| |
EUGENE ARNDT |
--99,000-- |
CLINTON |