Management Effects On Nutrient Availability from Dairy Heifer Manure
2012
- UW-Madison
Project Media
Wisconsin dairy producers and heifer growers rear over one million dairy replacement heifers at a cost of 825 million dollars annually. In addition, Wisconsin dairy heifers annually consume 18 million tons of feed and produce 61 million tons of manure. For each individual dairy producer or heifer grower the management objective is to reduce cost and the environmental impact of rearing dairy replacement heifers without compromising future milk production. A new innovation in feeding dairy heifers is to limit-feed dairy heifers a more nutrient dense diet. Because heifers are fed less feed under limit feeding, feed cost and manure excretion are reduced simultaneously.