The Moos Room™

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Joe Armstrong: Hey, everyone. You're listening to The Moos Room hosted by the University of Minnesota Extension. I'm one of your hosts, Dr. Joe Armstrong and my co-hosts are Emily Wills and Brad Heins. This is Episode 3 and we are continuing our discussion from last episode about grazing. In the last episode, we talked about the basics of grazing, and this episode, we're going to focus specifically on grazing in the dairy world.
We don't have a guest this week because we already have a grazing expert in the room. That's Dr. Bradley J. Heins. Brad's going to get right into it and tell us, besides the reduced feed costs that go along with grazing, what are the other reasons that we graze in the dairy world?
Bradley Heins: Well, Joe, I don't know if I'm an expert. I certainly don't know a lot about grazing. Well, I've worked with grazing producers for 10 years now in my position, and before that, even in some of the California work that I did in grad school, some herds are grazing so I have a pretty good grasp, but grazing is always changing. It's changing all the time with weather, breeds, feed. It's just a constant challenge, but it can be very rewarding for producers.
Like we talked about in the first episode, I think a lot of people start grazing because of reduced feed cost, and that's certainly a benefit. We probably should say grazing is not necessarily for everybody. It can work for some and some herds maybe just do grazing because of land, and lots of other things. One of the things I think that people decide to start grazing is human nutrition, really providing a healthy product to consumers, whether it be beef or dairy.
Here at our research center, we've done lots of different studies related to grazing and human nutrition and really when we talk about human nutrition, most people are focusing on omega-3s and omega-6, and the omega-6 to 3 ratio. We've done some studies on grass milk here as well and found that grass milk is higher in omega-3s than conventional or even, really organic milk. Grass milk has provided lots of benefits too.
Emily Willis: Well, actually, Bradley, I also want to add in that as we look at human nutrition and how different milks impact that, all milks contain the same nine essential nutrients, great source of protein and calcium especially and it really comes down to choice for a lot of consumers. When we're looking at conventional milk, organic milk, grass-raised milk, however, you want to say it, sometimes it's just a preference of how you like the cows to be raised, what works best for your budget, for your lifestyle, and again, for your values as well for how your food is raised.
Just a friendly reminder that all milk is safe for us. It is nutritious, and we're just very fortunate in this country to have a safe food supply and to have a lot of different choices and grass-fed milk is one of those choices.
Brad: I agree. Emily, you are totally right.
Emily: Write this down, everybody.
Brad: I don't give you kudos too much, but yes, I think it really depends on the consumer choice and what they prefer. Some people like that grass-flavored milk, it does have a different taste to it and a different flavor, and even a different color to it. Yes, if you haven't tried it, you might want to try it one time. You never know what you might like.
Joe: I think human nutrition plays a big role in it and there's some other factors that we'll get into later with genetics that play into that as well when we're constantly looking at that end product and trying to improve it in any way we can. What about the workload, Brad? Is it less work? Because I feel a lot of people are initially attracted to grazing because they think of it as less work for them, less management, all these things. Is that true or is it just different kind of work?
Brad: Well, I don't think it's less work. I think the work is a little bit different. You have to think about you're managing grass, that's what you have to do every day, and you have to make fence every few days, decide on how your cows and heifers are to be watered. Do you have water on pasture or do they get watered some other ways? Weather plays a big factor in it. Trying to manage the weather when your animals are outdoors if you don't have any facilities, can be a challenge. It doesn't necessarily save on work, you just shift to work to different things.
I think, there are some people that could argue and say it is less work, there is a growing movement in the grazing world now to go to once-a-day milking which is quite unique to save on labor costs.
Joe: Once a day.
Brad: Once a day milking. They do a lot of that in New Zealand and do not lose much production at all. I've-
Joe: That's really interesting.
Brad: -explored once-a-day milking here as well on cows that are 60 to 80 days before they go dry so I haven't done it through the whole lactation, but that's interesting to do some of the things and think about how to save labor in a grazing operation. There's a lot of different things that you can do with labor. I think the biggest thing you talk to grazing producers is they're not running a tractor in a TMR wagon or a manure spreader every day and that's one of the benefits that they see. It's you just don't need all that equipment like some other dairies do.
Emily: A low input system, but not necessarily lower labor. Like you said, just different style of labor.
Brad: Yes, definitely.
Joe: I think we haven't really touched on it yet, but we have these human nutrition components that we know are better. Is there a premium for grass-fed milk or is that a thing yet?
Brad: Yes and no. I think it depends on where you live. You might have some small co-ops, that are selling some local grass milk or some producers that might sell specialized milk off their farm. Typically, where you see a lot of the grass milk is coming through the organic world. Most organic processors will have a grass milk line of their products and that's where we really see it. You don't typically see it outside of the organic world, but you have and there have been some co-ops that have produced grass milk and are not around anymore either, so it's very specialized market.
The premium might not be there for totally grass-based unless you're really organic and if you think about it from an organic standpoint, there is a premium over organic milk to go organic and grass-fed.
Emily: Would you say most grass-fed milk is just marketed through traditional conventional chains?
Brad: Yes, most producers if you're a conventional grazing producer and you would just market it through conventional means it would go into the regular milk supply in the United States.
Joe: Grass-fed milk is more nutritious. We've got enough studies to show that. What do you think? Could the industry go 100% grazing?
Emily: Do we have the resources to go 100% grazing?
Brad: Well, of course, I would to see a lot more producers go grazing. That's my job. I work with lots of grazing producers. I think that it would take a lot more land to convert the whole dairy industry to grass-based production. Especially in some parts of the United States where there's high concentration of cows, it would take a lot more land to go grass-based. I think this could be up for debate, but we might need more cows.
Obviously, if you go totally grass-based production in your herd, you're going to sacrifice on milk production, you're probably not going to maintain 100-pound bulk tank average on your cows if you're grass-based. They do have less milk production, so we're going to sacrifice a little bit on milk production if you're grass-based, but there's a lot of trade-offs that come with that, that we had mentioned before.
Joe: How much are you sacrificing? What do you expect out of a well-managed grazing herd that's been doing it for a while? What do you expect production to be?
Brad: Oh, well-managed grazing herd. I think if you're not supplementing with anything if you're totally grass-based, no TMR, I would expect you should be able to get at least 35 to 40 pounds of milk out of your cows. Now, some people might laugh at that and think that's really low production, but if you're not supplementing, that's pretty good. If you're going to supplement, yes, you should be able to get 55 to 70, 75 pounds of milk really with your cows.
Joe: Are the components different in a grazing herd? Are they drastically different? Just a little different?
Brad: I think the components are a little bit different, I think it depends on your grazing. Components typically go down. We see fat depression in the spring. May and June into early July when the grass is pretty lush, really high in protein, you are seeing probably lower fat production. Fat tests in your cows, it does come back I think it depends. If you look at our herd, I'll pull it up now. We're sitting here November 8th, and we stopped grazing on November 6th. We are the luxury of grazing well into November this year, which is very unheard of. We're running a four-three fat and a three-six protein. There are a lot of grazing herds. Some herds do not have as high a fat and protein, but you can still get pretty good fat and protein production if you have well-managed grass and diversity of species in your pasture, things like that. You can maintain fat production.
Joe: Well, and that ties into-- especially it probably be the reason that you're able to graze that late is that you do manage it well. You're rotating really intensely and that's necessary because it's way different than beef in my mind because that cow is metabolically stressed and needs those calories on a whole another level than a beef animal. How fast are you rotating? It all depends on the grass.
Brad: Pasture rotation is pretty essential in any dairy grazing. In the early part of the spring, we're probably on a 22 to 23-day rotation, which is really fast. If there's rainfall and the grass is growing well. Typically later on in the grazing season, we're on 28 to 35-day rotation back to the same paddocks, which is actually pretty good. Sometimes we start managing with TMR. We started feeding TMR maybe mid-September just to sort of manage our grass and extend out the grazing season.
Joe: You're supplementing more to save grass or based on the cows?
Brad: Kind of both actually. Somewhat is to save on grass, hedging your bets, the fall look nice and we could hopefully extend the grazing season a little bit longer. Typically here in western Minnesota, we would stop grazing late September, maybe first week of October. When I tried to supplement those cows, I was hoping to extend it a little bit further and we probably got another month of grazing by feeding them. Basically, half of their diet was on TMR and the other half was grazing.
Joe: That's something that we see on the beef side a lot so it's cool that that translates really, really well, stocking forage, almost like a mob grazing mentality to like bank some of that up in preparation to try to get a few more months out of it.
Brad: Somebody's sitting quiet here. Emily, what do you see out of your herds that you work with that are grazing? I know you've worked with some grazing herds before.
Joe: You're not quite that often.
Emily: [laughs] Well, yes. I'm not the expert over here like Dr. Heins. I see a lot of people that, like you were saying, Bradley are trying to figure out this supplementation piece really to be able to extend that grazing season, I think is their big goal so that the cows aren't eating it all down too fast and they can keep them out there a little bit longer into the year, like into early November if it's possible. That's the big thing that I see on my herds that I work with.
Joe: When you're supplementing, you got bunks in the pasture that you put out?
Brad: When we're supplementing, we typically feed compost barn or a dry lot before they--
Joe: They come up?
Brad: Yes. They come up and have TMR so we're not feeding on pasture. Some herds actually do feed on pasture, just dump the feed on the ground. We do that with some of our groups, heifer group or something will maybe feed TMR on the ground.
Joe: I don't see a problem with that in my mind and I think it becomes more of an overwintering thing. I see a lot of guys feed on the ground in the winter. The ground's frozen. My biggest concern is bunk space. If you're going to supplement on pasture and you don't have enough bunk space, not everyone gets to eat so you got your fat cows that get fat and your skinny cows stay skinny. That's what I was getting at, if you're doing it in the barn, obviously, you have enough bunk space.
Brad: Yes, definitely.
Emily: If you're just doing it on the ground, Brad, would you have any concerns given if it's wet conditions or something that that area is going to get a little torn up or do they recover okay or is it just a sacrifice area now? What could that look like if we're going to tear up this part of the pasture to be able to supplement the TMR?
Brad: That's a good question, Emily. There are people that do supplement on the ground. I think you have to change your area every day that you're dumping on the ground just because you have mud or snow or you name it. Some people when they feed on the ground, they see that as soil fertility for the next summer for a pasture or paddock. Some sacrifice paddock that you're trying to restore. Some people listening might think that feeding on the ground is a waste, but some might see that as soil fertility, which plays a big role in grazing herds. Definitely, the soil is number one.
Joe: Absolutely. Let's talk about the cows for a second because I always-- On the beef side, we always talk about these cows that are made to walk and they're a little different than anything you would put in confinement. Are the cows different when we're talking about a grazing herd, are you selecting for anything differently on the grazing side, or are you just enhancing certain things that everyone should be selecting for?
Brad: Well, that's a loaded question.
Joe: I know. I set you up for it.
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Brad: Exactly. Now you'll have to make me tell you what I think. If you talk to the producers, probably the number one thing is smaller cows, that they want more medium-sized cows for their herd. They don't want big giants walking on pasture. I think that that's one of their big things. Cows with good feet and legs because they have to walk. If a cow can't walk, she does not work well in the grazing herd.
Joe: I would add to that, that if a cow can't walk, she doesn't work well in any herd-
Brad: Yes, you're probably right.
Joe: -but even more so in a grazing herd.
Brad: They do walk a lot, probably more in a grazing herd. Some herds, the cows will walk a mile back to the milking parlor, so it can be a long walk every day. Somatic cell count is a big one, well, for every herd, definitely that we select on infertility. A lot of grazing herds can be seasonal, so they need to get their cows pregnant in a short breeding window so fertility is probably a big reason to select for in a grazing herd as well.
Joe: Well, and the feet and legs probably ties into something I think gets missed on a lot of herds. Our call rates are really high as we turn over genetics and all these other things but there's something to be said for longevity. You put a lot of money into raising a heifer, the longer she sticks around, the more money that investment makes sense. It seems to make more sense the longer she's around milking in your herd.
Emily: Getting the full return on your investment.
Joe: Feet and legs play a big part of that but on the grazing side, even more so. We got beef cows that live forever out there grazing and if you select right, they can-- I'm sure it's the same for a milking herd, right?
Brad: Yes.
Joe: They stick around.
Brad: You know what? Probably another podcast that we could do is breeds for dairy herds. That's my specialty. I did lots of work in breeding and genetics.
Joe: I didn't bring crossbreeding on purpose.
Brad: We won't go there.
Emily: You can't see the big dumb smile on Brad's face right now but he's really--
Joe: He's really excited.
Emily: He's really happy.
Brad: We could talk about crossbreeding for hours, but most grazing herds tend to be crossbred herds. There's a lot of Holstein herds too. The number one question that I always get is what breed is best? I think it really depends on your management, your feeding situation, really what you're striving for. That could be Holstein. I've seen a lot of Jersey herds that are grazing. Then we could go into a lot of the other breeds that we're using Normande, Viking Red, [unintelligible 00:18:48] the yard. You see a lot of those in grazing herds too. There's just a lot of things that you can use for grazing. Some herds are using New Zealand genetics, some people use those.
Joe: I guess that's one of my soapbox things. You'll probably hear me on this podcast if you listen long enough, get on this soapbox a couple of times. I always have producers that ask about breeds and ask about cows, and how do they make their system fit their cows. Well, I think it's a lot easier in a lot of cases to make your cows fit your system. Select, cull. Do things that make it so that those cows work in your system, rather than trying to figure out how to spend all this money, all this equipment to make your cows work.
Get your system to work for your cows. Go the other way. You can change that kind of stuff. We've shown that. I think that's a big thing to keep in mind. Now I promised that we were going to talk about the genetic component that relates to human nutrition. We should probably get into that. That's A2A2 milk. Emily, do you know A2A2 Milk?
Emily: Oh, I'm familiar.
Joe: Give us your rundown.
Emily: I would say A2A2 milk, I think is a really great marketing strategy for our consumers. What we can boast with the A2A2 protein is that without that A1, it is more easily digestible for consumers that may find they get upset stomach from consuming dairy products, especially fluid milk. From that standpoint that it can help keep consumers consuming dairy products, consuming cow's milk. I think that there's a really big benefit there to producers.
I know Brad has some experience with the herds that he works with that are starting to get into this and looking at it a little bit deeper, but it doesn't change the way that the producer needs to manage the cow. It's just a genetic selection that you make, that you can breed for. Then everything else is kind of the same about the cow. Any other notes on this, Brad? I believe you've had A2A2 milk, correct?
Brad: Yes.
Emily: Does it taste different?
Brad: It does not taste any different. Not for me anyways. There's a lot of people that like A2 milk and seem to not have gut problems or whatever by drinking it. I think it depends on each individual person. If you have the benefit to use A2 bulls, why not use them? I guess that's probably the big thing. It's growing in the US. I've seen lots of commercials on TV for A2 milk now. Sure, why not select for it.
Emily: Kind of back to the question we asked earlier on specifically marketing grass-fed milk as grass-fed to processors, are there those avenues yet on, "Hey, I'm going to convert my herd to A2 and I have somewhere I can market it that way."
Brad: Good question. There are not any premiums or benefits for producing A2 milk in the mainstream dairy industry right now. If you have a processing plant on your farm, which I know some people do, they market their A2 milk and that's great. For mainstream dairy, there is no premium or benefit to A2 milk as of right now. There could be in the future, but we don't know. As we start using a lot of A2 bulls, I think a lot of herds, conventional and grazing, they're just going to become all A2A2 in the future anyways. 60% of our herd here in Morris is A2A2 and I really haven't selected for it in the past. It's just been a benefit.
Joe: I might get a little off-topic.
Brad: No, here comes the veterinarian talk and all.
Emily: Oh-oh.
Joe: I'm on a soapbox again because I hear you say, all right, A2A2 milk, all bulls are going to be A2A2 eventually. Why can't we do that with polled bulls? It's the same thing, right? It's a huge benefit. It's all this stuff. I'm way off topic, but the first thing that comes to mind is everyone's so excited about A2A2 milk. We're going to just make all the bulls A2A2 anyway. Why have we not got the basics under control with polled animals? Okay, we're probably going to cut this out, just so you all know. If I leave it in, this is completely off-topic.
Emily: I think easily digestible milk is more sellable than this cow didn't have horns.
Joe: It's such a PR-
Emily: I know but it's a marketing piece.
Joe: -a PR thing to not have to go through that process of dehorning and it's such a simple move. It's a dominant trait. Just put it in or select for it, make it a priority, and no one has, and it blows my mind.
Brad: I agree. We can look at the science and the science will tell you that polled bulls have lower production traits than regular bulls. I think that's really why it hasn't caught on as much in the industry. I think it should. Polled is wonderful. Nobody likes to dehorn. It's kind of a pain and lots of new things coming along with the farm program and dehorning and pain mitigation and stuff. They're happening because consumers are asking. I think we need to, and we will. We just need to figure out how to get those pulled bulls to have the production traits of the regular bulls and it'll take off.
Joe: We have those tools. They're there because we can modify these bulls with genetics and genetic tools that we have. Again, sorry we're so off-topic but I couldn't help myself. We had to get into it.
Brad: It is a question on the Farm 4.0.
Joe: Absolutely.
Brad: National Farm, whether they're using polled bulls. Now you don't get docked for it if you're-- It's just a management question they're asking but I think it's coming.
Joe: The solution is yes, we should be mitigating pain and doing all these things and lidocaine blocking, providing anti-inflammatory, all that stuff. I think it benefits the producer to do that, but it's much easier to just not do it at all. Don't end up [crosstalk]
Emily: Look forward for our upcoming episode, Genetics 101. [crosstalk]
Joe: Genetics 101 with Dr. Bradley J. Heins. All right. I think we've deteriorated. We're going to call it a wrap on Episode 3. You hope you learned about why we use grazing in dairy systems and a little bit about what it takes to manage a grazing herd, why it's different. Then what to look for when you're selecting for genetics in your herd. As always, if you'd like to learn more or need something to reference, please visit extension.umn.edu. That's extension.umn.edu. If you have any questions for us, comments about the show or ideas about what you'd like to hear, send them to themoosroom@umn.edu. That's T-H-E-M-O-O-S-R-O-O-M@umn.edu. Thanks for listening. We'll catch you next episode.
Emily: I love how it just descended into chaos at the end.
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