My summers in the early 1980’s were spent working on a neighbor’s dairy farm. My dad was a crop farmer, so the neighbor’s farm was where I got my start in the dairy business. One day I was sent to Brodhead, WI to pick up one of the first TMR mixers in the area – a Knight Little Auggie. That was the beginning of the end of what we called challenge feeding. On my own farm, I fed ingredients separately in a tie stall barn, so I continued challenge feeding until I sold the cows in 2001.
Before TMR’s, we fed individual ingredients to each cow – a pile of corn silage in the morning, a few slabs of hay at various times of day, and a wheelbarrow and feed scoop to precisely feed grain, and protein supplement to each cow a couple of times a day. The feed salesman provided a chart to give each cow the right amount of grain and protein, according to her daily milk production. Fresh cows were not fed according to their actual production. They were fed according to their potential production. They always got a little more grain and protein than the milk they were producing - to challenge them to higher production. That’s what we called challenge feeding.
Challenge feeding disappeared when total mixed rations (TMR) became popular. The TMR provided everything a cow needed in every mouthful. The highest producing cows ate more, so extra mouthfuls provided extra nutrients to support higher production. At the time, it took a great deal of effort for extension specialists and nutritionists to convince us that we did not need to feed each cow according to her individual needs. Some farmers continued challenge feeding with computer-controlled feed stations. Over time, the TMR became the standard for feeding cows and challenge feeding was all but forgotten.
And then, milking robots came along. The TMR was replaced with the PMR (Partial Mixed Ration). Partial because each mouthful no longer contained all the nutrients the cow needed. Some nutrients were taken out of the PMR and put into the pellets to attract cows to the robots. Most rations are formulated so that higher producing cows get more pellets than lower producing cows, and that means we need to take another look at challenge feeding.
Challenge feeding in milking robots means setting the feed table to give cows a little more than they need until they reach peak production. If early lactation feed tables only meet requirements for actual production, cows will not have the nutrients to reach higher production and peak at their potential. Furthermore, the feed table may take pellets away if production temporarily drops because of a sore foot, a case of mastitis, or an off-feed problem. Challenge feeding gives cows the groceries they need so production can recover after those events. After peak milk production feed tables can match milk production.
Your nutritionist can help you determine the right amount of pellets to challenge your cows to peak production. I can help set up feed tables and monitor intakes to make sure cows are getting the pellets the nutritionist intended. Contact Cow Corner for more information.
Little Auggie photo courtesy of https://www.tractorhouse.com/listings/auction-results/knight/little-auggie/farm-equipment
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