How High-Shear Dry Extrusion Promotes Dairy Efficiency
As a nutritionist, I am often asked about which feed ingredients have the greatest impact on input costs and dairy performance. One improvement you can make is to use high-quality ingredients, such as ExPress® soymeal, in dairy cattle rations.
First, ExPress® soy meal provides both protein and energy for the cow. In addition, high-shear dry extrusion promotes the generation of rumen bypass protein and fat which support the cow’s performance. This has been previously described here and here in past blogs. When compared to other bypass ingredients, which often require more than one ingredient to be fed, ExPress® soymeal provides both bypass protein and bypass fat in a single ingredient, which can save the producer between $0.21 and $0.37/cow/day in diet costs.
This leads to the second advantage, measurable responses when using high-quality feed ingredients to improve cow performance. Specifically, better efficiency in converting protein into milk, resulting in increased milk production. As a result, fewer inputs promote better growth and performance and in turn, drive revenue.
In addition to ExPress® soymeal, other extruded ingredients, like high-shear dry extruded corn, can be used to lead to success and potentially prevent profitability loss in a dairy operation. When milk prices are low, you can reformulate the ration to include more extruded corn and fewer expensive protein-containing ingredients, and overall diet costs will decrease by $0.10 – $0.20/cow/day – hopefully allowing the producer to preserve a margin on milk sales. As ingredient prices increase, this margin of profitability begins to shrink. Therefore, using the appropriate combinations of consistent, high-quality extruded soy and corn can reduce the overall diet cost while maintaining performance as much as possible, advancing towards profitability.
Efficiency of a dairy operation improves by utilizing high-quality, consistent ingredients – ExPress® soy meal and high-shear dry extruded corn. Learn more by getting in touch with a member of our team.
