Hey Kip, Don’t be afraid to add water to your TMR. It makes to feed more palpable to the cows. And it helps keep them from just picking out the grains. Love the videos keep them coming.
Alot of dairy you tubers add water to there TMR to get moisture in line. Especially those who add dry ground hay and or straw even up in the much colder Canadian dairies. There nutritionist balance moisture with added water to keep the dry matter of the feed right. The Canadian runs the water out of milking parlor building with a pipe/drop down 90 degreed section into the running mixer based on number of pounds off the mixer wagon scale. I was always surprised how well the water drained and never froze up the line all winter.
Kip , one thing with feeding a total mixed ration is you gotta have your moisture right on all your feeds. Your nutritionist should be checking your feed moistures on his visits. Don’t ever be afraid to call him as soon as you see a problem. you might wanna feed a little more fat winter time now to keep condition on your cows.
@@KipSieglerFarming1 palm oil fat or liquid fat the feed mill puts it in my protein mix. I actually went back to feeding cotton seed for the fat, fiber and protein
Sorry for not being around for the last 8 days. Helene hit and made a giant mess.Lots of my neighboring towns are completely gone! Please pray for those folks and their kin. Will be years rebuilding. Lots of lives lost also. We made it thru by the grace of god. Shelby N.C. still digging out. Finally getting to watch my best you tube videos. Little light shinning in now. Thanks for sharing. Old milk hand here. From 60's 70' 80's. Thanks for letting me ride along. Keep them coming. God bless!
Kip. They make a lever that bolts into the lever on the scv on the back of the tractor so you don’t have to reach up to the original levers. I think k and m makes them. That would make it a whole lot easier on them old Deere to adjust the mixer and the bagger. Might want to look into them.
We always worked close with our nutritionist, we fed our of silos and bags, we sent forage samples in every 3 weeks or if we seen a sudden change in production, you know how it is putting feed up when its 90 degrees and the wind kicks up.... It can change so fast in 1 hour, make your nutritionist do his job, that's what you pay him for and that puts milk in the tank
Hey kip, so what we do on our farm with feeding is we run moisture samples on our forages, then we feed a ration off the dry matter and add water instead of a set pound amount, super easy math just take your dry matter pounds divided by moisture/dry matter percent divided by number of feedings times the number your feeding, little more effort but gives a better way to adjust for changes like that way, but that's just what we do you do what works for you and your farm
If we get to dry we do a blend as well, but we sample all our feed 3x a week for dry matter. All our mixes are based on a lbs of dry matter per ingredient so we just adjust as per dry matter. Cows are looking fuller since you went to TMR. Nice seeing your progress! Cheers
Seem like we were always late Then we ran water in the blower to help get the moisture back up. Haven't been seeing the Grant Man, hope everything is ok with him. We all miss him. And yes you have a great wife that puts up a great lunch. TAKE CARE AND STAY SAFE DURING THIS HARVEST SEASON !!!!!
Thanks for the video Kip. It was interesting and informative and enjoyable to watch. I agree with the comments you got and your comments also about the feed getting way too dry. Your cows were not eating because no moisture in the feed. Just had dry feed and that seems to not work for dairy cows. Glad you caught on to what was going on. Mix lots of moisture in your feed for the cows. I would not hesitate to call your nutritionist any time you notice a change like that. He can help you get it squared away right away. That is what they are there for. Sure glad you caught the moisture issue. Good going Kip. Busy time for all of you. Hang in there. The Iowa farm boy. Steve.
Always important to stay on top of your moisture /dry matter numbers consistently in your forages is consistently in your intake and your milk production
@@KipSieglerFarming1 I’ve watched a couple other Dairymen, one is 10th Generation and the other is 802 Farmer. One adds molasses and the other adds water.🤷♂️
@KipSieglerFarming1 Always important to know how much your bucket fulls are and how many it takes because when u hit a dry spot u can add water in your mix to make up the difference. Like u said your bucket fulls went from 1000 to 400 niw u kniw ur 600 pounds shirt in water so if it calls for 3000lbs of Haylage and u normally put 3 bucket fulls in and only get 1200 pounds u can add water to get to your 3000 pounds without screwing up the cows . Hope thus helps Been feeding TMR for about 10 years now and understand what u are saying u will learn as u go
That's why we feed amounts based on dry matter, not moisture. You can always add water to your TMR to make dry feed more palatable and sticky so cows can't sort it as easily. You'll see an increase in milk by mixing your protein grain in the TMR as well
The way to plan feeding is first find the %dry matter in the hay and use the dry matter amount in the total ration to figure out how much of the dry hay and the second cutting to mix together
We sample our haylage at least every week when the nutritionists comes on farm. Sometimes more. Cornsilage and grain is usually every 3 weeks unlesss see a difference... if you pile it then you'll see a massive difference when you get a jeavy rain also because of the big open face on pile.. your nutritionist can adjust according to moisture, protein, energy of sample..
Now you’re learning young man hang in there that’s one little disadvantage of bags. Every load is a separate little package, but you can make it work. And also a moisture tester will become your best friend to get your ration moisture right. And don’t hesitate to call you nutritionist I’m sure he gets paid.😂 and I think I would get that high moisture corn in that ration or I should say in the TMR also complete ration. Sorry for the rambling take care of the family and carry on with the videos. Thank you.
Hey Kip how are you? If your mix is to dry, don’t be shy to add water. As some other viewers mention, check with your nutritionist for the moisture level. Keep on the good work.
Opening the other bag of haylage was probably your best option. Talking with your nutritionist about it would be alright also, just to bounce ideas back and forth, being it sounds like he's pretty experienced. Then im sure when things slow down some, or after combining you can do some additional research on feeding or feedstuffs in case you want to use different products through the mixer. Atleast the technology is there now to find stuff compared to when we were in high school to help with information.
We always added water especially in the summer when it was hot we added like 100lbs of water per batch. Also for your wagons and forage operation have you ever looked into getting quick hitches? With the amount of wagons you have it'd be a HUGE time saver. Congrats on all the improvements and success love the videos!
I feed baleage so I’m not sure but I’ll suspect your loader bucket will hold about the same amount of dry matter regardless of moisture. So once you get a handle on how much it is you can ignore the weight and just count buckets. I don’t think it’s the dry hay that they don’t like so much as the ratio of hay to other ingredients was off and you gave them more than they could eat.
You have to add water to the ration , we work here whit 44 % moister, because we have very dry silage , sometimes we add to 100 gallon water in 5 ton ration
We feed cows pounds of dry matter. They will eat less because it's drier. Also the first cut probably does have more fiber and thus gut fill can be an issue. It's all about balancing. Not running the grain through the mixer takes you back to the guessing game.
18 дней назад+1
I've had good results with an Agritronix silage moisture tester, put a sample in the bag and results in seconds. Your nutritionist balances based on lbs of dry matter of each ingredient. Check a sample every two or three days you'll find it varies even from when you start chopping in the morning until mid afternoon.
The moisture is key. Sometimes we run the garden hose into the mixer if we run into some dryer hay. The cows will tell you right away. Don't doubt yourself you have it figured out.
Dry matter intake. Is key. Test your feed at least once every two weeks. So he can balance a ration for you. The dryer the feed the less the cows are goig to eat pounds wise. More dry matter in the dryer feed. And let your nutritionist know how you're running the grain extra. Doing it as a top dress out of the silo. You are still guessing. And if you feed too much grain. That will cause problems too. The mixer wagon is the most important tool you need to use
Not a bad option, just have to cook feed out every once in awhile. I always fed 2 or 3 different cuttings. I switched to baleage and i can do it easier
They would have eaten it , you just have to adjust weights according to moisture. Adding molasses would help alot also. Good source of energy , helps with sorting.
The reason you think they eat the wet feed so much better is because not enough dry mater before you were trying to get to much in to them they could not get the grain and corn they were to full 😊
You have a whole lot of things going on there and consistency is key, ingredient moistures and ingredients in the ration. Pulling the grain out like that defeats the purpose of the mixer. Injoyed the video!
@KipSieglerFarming1 check out farming fixing and fabricating they have a big dairy in New York. They milk around 1700-1800 I think. Houragan is the name family. Very informative channel its a family operation like yours. The channel is kid appropriate if wanted to watch it with the kids.
Kip have a question. What moisture is your corn when u put it in the silo? Friend of mine is thinking about doing some high moisture corn but was wondering what moisture to put it in at. It would be going in a stave silo
One of the customers that I deliver john deere equipment to in Wisconsin he milks around 6000 cows and they have 4 tmr mixers running around there and the guy told me they do 79 loads of feed a day and they mix water into ever batch of feed they have this big pipe by the barn they drive under and the water gets dumped in there and I asked him why he mixes water in with the feed and he told me that the swallow it easier and if the feed is dry it helps with that also
If moisture is drier you need to feed less haylage have check your dry matters I feed 50/50 first and 2nd have your nutritionist set you ration send a feed sample in of 1st and 2nd so you know what dealing with
@@KipSieglerFarming1 ohhh gotcha so you guys are super high solids content then. I farm in Canada and everyone has liquid pits and dry so just havnt seen that befor, a farm without liquid. Other then like the old old style tie stall barns
One more question you have milk cows where does the milk go all over the United States or is it Michigan milk that might sound stupid but I’m not a farmer I was just curious
You need to know dm’s on ingredients so you know how much to put it. Ie dryer feed you need less weight. It’s not junk you just need to feed it properly
You’ll have to learn to feed on a dry matter basis rather than total pounds of the mix in the wagon. This is critical. Your nutritionist should help you with this
You need talk to your nutrition guy all your ingredients have to be based on dry matter that dry haylage should be fed at half the wait to fell the cows up as the wet haylage
Hey Kip,
Don’t be afraid to add water to your TMR.
It makes to feed more palpable to the cows.
And it helps keep them from just picking out the grains.
Love the videos keep them coming.
When your loading your mixer start with all your dryer ingredients first then wetter feeds and so on. Helps push feed down and makes a better mix
Good tip 👍
Never be afraid to call the nutritionist
Alot of dairy you tubers add water to there TMR to get moisture in line. Especially those who add dry ground hay and or straw even up in the much colder Canadian dairies. There nutritionist balance moisture with added water to keep the dry matter of the feed right. The Canadian runs the water out of milking parlor building with a pipe/drop down 90 degreed section into the running mixer based on number of pounds off the mixer wagon scale. I was always surprised how well the water drained and never froze up the line all winter.
Another good video. Glad to see you getting rain. Have a good week and stay safe.
Really enjoying watching you learn more about your feed.
👍👍
Kip , one thing with feeding a total mixed ration is you gotta have your moisture right on all your feeds. Your nutritionist should be checking your feed moistures on his visits. Don’t ever be afraid to call him as soon as you see a problem. you might wanna feed a little more fat winter time now to keep condition on your cows.
Ok good call, I’ll call him. Where do you get the fat from
@@KipSieglerFarming1 palm oil fat or liquid fat the feed mill puts it in my protein mix. I actually went back to feeding cotton seed for the fat, fiber and protein
@@KipSieglerFarming1be careful adding fat let Steve direct you on that. Things can go down hill fast if fed wrong.
Add molasses and water
@@DelmarPekarekdo you feed like the fuzzy cotton seed
Sorry for not being around for the last 8 days. Helene hit and made a giant mess.Lots of my neighboring towns are completely gone! Please pray for those folks and their kin. Will be years rebuilding. Lots of lives lost also. We made it thru by the grace of god. Shelby N.C. still digging out. Finally getting to watch my best you tube videos. Little light shinning in now. Thanks for sharing. Old milk hand here. From 60's 70' 80's. Thanks for letting me ride along. Keep them coming. God bless!
Great video Kipo, keep them coming i really enjoy them
Fed dairy cows 40 years ago, of alfalfa is dry garden hose. It works
Kip. They make a lever that bolts into the lever on the scv on the back of the tractor so you don’t have to reach up to the original levers. I think k and m makes them. That would make it a whole lot easier on them old Deere to adjust the mixer and the bagger. Might want to look into them.
Yes I could use that 👍
We always worked close with our nutritionist, we fed our of silos and bags, we sent forage samples in every 3 weeks or if we seen a sudden change in production, you know how it is putting feed up when its 90 degrees and the wind kicks up.... It can change so fast in 1 hour, make your nutritionist do his job, that's what you pay him for and that puts milk in the tank
We use 2 balage bales, minerals and grain. Then while it mixes add 1000 pounds of water. Ask your nutrionist how they feel about water
Hey kip, so what we do on our farm with feeding is we run moisture samples on our forages, then we feed a ration off the dry matter and add water instead of a set pound amount, super easy math just take your dry matter pounds divided by moisture/dry matter percent divided by number of feedings times the number your feeding, little more effort but gives a better way to adjust for changes like that way, but that's just what we do you do what works for you and your farm
@@caseihmagnum279 thanks 👍
Another very interesting video Thank you 😊😊
👍👍
If we get to dry we do a blend as well, but we sample all our feed 3x a week for dry matter. All our mixes are based on a lbs of dry matter per ingredient so we just adjust as per dry matter. Cows are looking fuller since you went to TMR. Nice seeing your progress! Cheers
@@mikethemilkman-01 they put on weight!
My nutritionist says throw a water hose in that mixer, get it wet so the grain and mineral stick to the feed. Makes a more even tmr
Seem like we were always late
Then we ran water in the blower to help get the moisture back up.
Haven't been seeing the Grant Man, hope everything is ok with him. We all miss him.
And yes you have a great wife that puts up a great lunch.
TAKE CARE AND STAY SAFE DURING THIS HARVEST SEASON !!!!!
Thanks for the video Kip.
It was interesting and informative and enjoyable to watch.
I agree with the comments you got and your comments also about the feed getting way too dry.
Your cows were not eating because no moisture in the feed. Just had dry feed and that seems to not work for dairy cows.
Glad you caught on to what was going on. Mix lots of moisture in your feed for the cows.
I would not hesitate to call your nutritionist any time you notice a change like that. He can help you get it squared away right away. That is what they are there for.
Sure glad you caught the moisture issue.
Good going Kip.
Busy time for all of you. Hang in there.
The Iowa farm boy. Steve.
It’s a learning process, good call!!
It’s the learning that keeps us going!!
Always important to stay on top of your moisture /dry matter numbers consistently in your forages is consistently in your intake and your milk production
Water might help?
@@KipSieglerFarming1
I’ve watched a couple other Dairymen, one is 10th Generation and the other is 802 Farmer. One adds molasses and the other adds water.🤷♂️
@RJJ6129 👍👍
@KipSieglerFarming1 Always important to know how much your bucket fulls are and how many it takes because when u hit a dry spot u can add water in your mix to make up the difference. Like u said your bucket fulls went from 1000 to 400 niw u kniw ur 600 pounds shirt in water so if it calls for 3000lbs of Haylage and u normally put 3 bucket fulls in and only get 1200 pounds u can add water to get to your 3000 pounds without screwing up the cows . Hope thus helps Been feeding TMR for about 10 years now and understand what u are saying u will learn as u go
You can add water into the mixer as well
Might try that
That's why we feed amounts based on dry matter, not moisture. You can always add water to your TMR to make dry feed more palatable and sticky so cows can't sort it as easily. You'll see an increase in milk by mixing your protein grain in the TMR as well
The way to plan feeding is first find the %dry matter in the hay and use the dry matter amount in the total ration to figure out how much of the dry hay and the second cutting to mix together
Thanks, I’m on it now 👍
I'm glad you don't have to go up into the silos like you did before
We sample our haylage at least every week when the nutritionists comes on farm. Sometimes more. Cornsilage and grain is usually every 3 weeks unlesss see a difference... if you pile it then you'll see a massive difference when you get a jeavy rain also because of the big open face on pile.. your nutritionist can adjust according to moisture, protein, energy of sample..
Now you’re learning young man hang in there that’s one little disadvantage of bags. Every load is a separate little package, but you can make it work. And also a moisture tester will become your best friend to get your ration moisture right. And don’t hesitate to call you nutritionist I’m sure he gets paid.😂 and I think I would get that high moisture corn in that ration or I should say in the TMR also complete ration. Sorry for the rambling take care of the family and carry on with the videos. Thank you.
I’m on it 👍👍
It's all trial and error. Definitely seems like your figuring ot all out. Have a good one boys
Hey Kip how are you? If your mix is to dry, don’t be shy to add water. As some other viewers mention, check with your nutritionist for the moisture level. Keep on the good work.
Opening the other bag of haylage was probably your best option. Talking with your nutritionist about it would be alright also, just to bounce ideas back and forth, being it sounds like he's pretty experienced. Then im sure when things slow down some, or after combining you can do some additional research on feeding or feedstuffs in case you want to use different products through the mixer.
Atleast the technology is there now to find stuff compared to when we were in high school to help with information.
@@aaronbeisch4707 hopefully that slop haylage isn't sky high in butyric acid
Good video and good move with the hay feed
We always added water especially in the summer when it was hot we added like 100lbs of water per batch. Also for your wagons and forage operation have you ever looked into getting quick hitches? With the amount of wagons you have it'd be a HUGE time saver. Congrats on all the improvements and success love the videos!
Put all ingredients in the T M R and always check dry matter!
👍👍
You could always run a dry matter sample to know exactly what your dry matter is that you're feeding
@@ericschmitt2597 I need to do that asap so I know how much to put of each instead of guessing
I feed baleage so I’m not sure but I’ll suspect your loader bucket will hold about the same amount of dry matter regardless of moisture. So once you get a handle on how much it is you can ignore the weight and just count buckets. I don’t think it’s the dry hay that they don’t like so much as the ratio of hay to other ingredients was off and you gave them more than they could eat.
You have to add water to the ration , we work here whit 44 % moister, because we have very dry silage , sometimes we add to 100 gallon water in 5 ton ration
I spent a few days camping in Northern Michigan, beautiful state
Could try adding water to the first cut
They them boys yoopers!!
We feed cows pounds of dry matter. They will eat less because it's drier. Also the first cut probably does have more fiber and thus gut fill can be an issue. It's all about balancing. Not running the grain through the mixer takes you back to the guessing game.
I've had good results with an Agritronix silage moisture tester, put a sample in the bag and results in seconds. Your nutritionist balances based on lbs of dry matter of each ingredient. Check a sample every two or three days you'll find it varies even from when you start chopping in the morning until mid afternoon.
I like that, test it yourself 👍👍
We also add water when our ration gets to dry. We like to run at 51 % moisture in tmr ration
U could add some mollasis as well they will love it
The moisture is key. Sometimes we run the garden hose into the mixer if we run into some dryer hay. The cows will tell you right away. Don't doubt yourself you have it figured out.
Mix water Orr cow candy
My uncle always did this back in the 70s and 80s. Small dairy farm that was producing top 10% in the state.
@@mattmacdougall464 water mix. It smelled like dill pickles when it came out.
I've notice a lot of other dairy farms add molasses in their TMR. Have you thought of adding it to yours?
Dry matter intake. Is key. Test your feed at least once every two weeks. So he can balance a ration for you. The dryer the feed the less the cows are goig to eat pounds wise. More dry matter in the dryer feed. And let your nutritionist know how you're running the grain extra. Doing it as a top dress out of the silo. You are still guessing. And if you feed too much grain. That will cause problems too. The mixer wagon is the most important tool you need to use
Not a bad option, just have to cook feed out every once in awhile. I always fed 2 or 3 different cuttings. I switched to baleage and i can do it easier
👍👍
OK, one more thing where has big Grant been? Haven’t seen him in a couple videos school maybe? Just curious it’s fun watching him.
You can add water into the mix as well
We added water to our tmr when we were milking
They would have eaten it , you just have to adjust weights according to moisture. Adding molasses would help alot also. Good source of energy , helps with sorting.
Dry matter testing is important when feeding by weight.
Kip .we check our dm on forages weekly . And feed accordingly from it.
The reason you think they eat the wet feed so much better is because not enough dry mater before you were trying to get to much in to them they could not get the grain and corn they were to full 😊
You have a whole lot of things going on there and consistency is key, ingredient moistures and ingredients in the ration. Pulling the grain out like that defeats the purpose of the mixer.
Injoyed the video!
Yes I’m going to have to stop doing that 👍👍
When chopping hay that is too dry ive seen guys go ahead of the chopper spraying water on the hay to get some moisture in it and help it store.
Never saw that before
@KipSieglerFarming1 check out farming fixing and fabricating they have a big dairy in New York. They milk around 1700-1800 I think. Houragan is the name family. Very informative channel its a family operation like yours. The channel is kid appropriate if wanted to watch it with the kids.
They put water on the row to keep the chopper from plugging up when it gets to dry.
I would keep two bags of different crops of hay open all the time
I think do from here on out
lots of people add water to their mix, may help with the dry hay problem
Kip have a question. What moisture is your corn when u put it in the silo? Friend of mine is thinking about doing some high moisture corn but was wondering what moisture to put it in at. It would be going in a stave silo
And it will work if the hay is not too far. The kicker, that's what I did
👍👍
One of the customers that I deliver john deere equipment to in Wisconsin he milks around 6000 cows and they have 4 tmr mixers running around there and the guy told me they do 79 loads of feed a day and they mix water into ever batch of feed they have this big pipe by the barn they drive under and the water gets dumped in there and I asked him why he mixes water in with the feed and he told me that the swallow it easier and if the feed is dry it helps with that also
Wow and makes sense. Like beer and chicken wings
Yeah you should see his pile of corn silage they chopped 7000 acres this year he told me
If moisture is drier you need to feed less haylage have check your dry matters I feed 50/50 first and 2nd have your nutritionist set you ration send a feed sample in of 1st and 2nd so you know what dealing with
Most dairy farmers are adding molasses to feed it binds everything together and feed gets ate
@@danmartin9558 I’ll probably try that, right now it’s only what we grow
@@danmartin9558 molasses only pays over 75lbs. I think
You can do distillars or corn gluten if it's in your area. Has a sweet smell
The title made me think you sent someone for the ole meathouse attitude adjustment. 😂
I personally don't run a TMR but why are you not weighing your corn and dumping it into the mixer?
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a video from you with how you guys deal with your liquid manure.
We just scoop it out and spread it, no pit yet
@@KipSieglerFarming1 ohhh gotcha so you guys are super high solids content then. I farm in Canada and everyone has liquid pits and dry so just havnt seen that befor, a farm without liquid. Other then like the old old style tie stall barns
Hey Kip an unfounded add water to the dry hay.
👍👍
Are you eventually going to knock them silos down? Just curious because it seems you’re happy with the bagging
So eventually you'll run out of dry mix right? I can't remember the last dry silage y'all put up. I could be wrong I admit
We did 1-4 haylage this year I think we’ll be ok. This year will be a test learning year
Kip, are you thinking of putting roasted soy meal in your ration? Its like jet fuel...
Use that nutritionist, and add water as he says.
Maybe add some water to the mix if that first cutting is dry.
One more question you have milk cows where does the milk go all over the United States or is it Michigan milk that might sound stupid but I’m not a farmer I was just curious
Should add water or molasses or some sweetener we use
Good idea 👍
Will your high moisture stuff freeze in the winter?
Probably, we’ll see how it goes never done it before 👍
@@KipSieglerFarming1 fair enough. Thanks
good good
Molasses helps
Add about 150 kg of water
give me the silos any day
That’s easy to say until a son or father dies in one
Might have to add water
Mix water or cow candy
You need to know dm’s on ingredients so you know how much to put it. Ie dryer feed you need less weight. It’s not junk you just need to feed it properly
@@BGFKevin 👍👍
Add water to your TMR. I'm not sure why you don't .
You’ll have to learn to feed on a dry matter basis rather than total pounds of the mix in the wagon.
This is critical.
Your nutritionist should help you with this
👍👍
Careful they'll sht it right threw
Your wet forage the reason the feed bunks are empty is because u are short changing them on feed .. water has no feed value
You need talk to your nutrition guy all your ingredients have to be based on dry matter that dry haylage should be fed at half the wait to fell the cows up as the wet haylage
Your nutritionist should have tested all bags before you started feeding them.
Worms on the roof?
In the gutter