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Shrink
is one of those evasive terms that talks about what you
DON’T have. Shrink is, IN FACT, a true expense to
your operation. Some of the decisions that you make regarding
harvest, storage, and feeding of forage can be setting
the stage for your vulnerability to the silent thief of
shrink!
If you know what you harvest
and what you actually feed, the difference will undoubtedly
surprise you. Ask yourself what kind of shrink you have
on your operation, and frequently you won’t have
the answer, or you’ll guess that it’s "not
too bad", or you may answer, "I don’t know,
and I think I really don’t want to know!"
The truth is, a truck scale
is one of the biggest moneymakers on the farm. First you
have to measure what the reality is today in shrink expense,
before you can measure your results in shrink control.
If your corn silage costs you $ 25.00/ton harvested, laid
in the bunk and covered, every 1 % shrink will cost you
$250.00/thousand tons. I’ve talked to dairymen who’ve
said that once they’ve had scales installed, they
have discovered shrink exceeding 20 %… That equates
to a $ 5,000.00 expense per 1,000 tons. So when you consider
all of your options regarding forage storage: A covered
pile on the ground that may (at first sight) look like
you are saving thousands when compared to bagging, may
actually be COSTING you thousands.
Once nutrients are consumed,
or product is lost through harvest, storage and feed-out
management, it is gone forever. What is worse than the
actual "disappearance" of product that you planned
on having at feed-out, is the feeding of inferior forage
products as a result of nutrient shrink. What is "leftover"
from a poorly fermented stored forage is often costing
the dairy producer milk production every day of the year.
Consider the forage that
you are feeding now. Is it heating up at feed-out? If
you can feel heat as you place your hand in the pile waiting
to be fed, you are actually witnessing the robbery of
nutrients from the diet that your cows will consume. "Oh,
that’s no big deal," you say! Well it can be
a huge deal, if your objective is to maximize profitable
milk production.
That "shrink"
that robbed you of nutrients earlier, may have left you
with a forage product containing far less nutrients than
your nutritionist has considered in the formulation of
your cows’ diets. If protein is limiting in your
lactating cow’s diet, a 0.10 # of protein can cost
you 1.00 # of milk… If energy is limiting in your
diet, a one pound shortage of energy can equate to a 3.00
# loss of milk production per cow per day.
It either costs your operation
in increased purchased feed expense to compensate for
the lost nutrients in your "on farm" feedstuffs:
Or it costs you in lost milk production due the feeding
of feeds that have been robbed of nutrients.
Let’s consider a diet
where you are feeding 22 # of dry matter from forage.
If you are 1% short in your estimate of the protein content,
that’s a 0.22 # of protein shortfall (or about 2
# of milk – IF protein is limiting in the diet).
If the NEL is 63, instead of 66 mCALS, that could equate
to a 0.66 mCAL shortfall. IF energy is limiting, that
could equate to another 2 # of milk loss.
At $13.00 milk, that can
mean over $18,000.00 less income per 100 cows per year.
Depending on face management, you could be feeding a much
poorer quality product than what you put up at harvest.
This only considers protein and energy. The cost of nutrient
loss grows dramatically when you consider the expense
of feeding forages that limit dry matter intake due to
high levels of butyric acid, forages that are too wet
or forages that exacerbate foot problems because they
are chopped too fine.
By feeding that "marginal"
forage, and decreasing DMI correspondingly, you can drastically
effect milk production. A decrease of DMI by one pound
can equate to another 1-3 # in sacrificed milk. That can
mean another $9,000 per 100 cows per year.
Certainly, some of these
losses can be prevented by sound nutritional recommendations
based on consistent wet chemistry laboratory analysis
of your forages. The underlying point here is that even
if you compensate for the damage done to forage through
nutrient shrink, it remains that you are compensating
for feed quality, and milk production that you have already
paid for once… and then lost… through shrink!
We are in a pound business!
One pound of milk, one pound of dry matter intake, and
one pound of forage saved can translate to a major impact
on your bottom line. Ignorance may be bliss, but it can
also cost you a lot of money. What you don’t know
CAN hurt you! |
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