6-18 FB Dairy Forage

 Even when things are tough down on the farm, make that dairy farm…the cows still get to eat hay. I’m David Sparks and I’ll be talking forage in a minute. The University of Idaho’s Dr. Mereille Chahine recently conducted a study that showed dairy producers saw the value in feeding forage even when the economic crisis was at its worst. Here’s Dr. Chahene: “I sent a survey to the dairies in Idaho and I wanted to see how they reacted to the crisis. I was interested in the ration. I wanted to see what they would do because the cost of the ration is 50-60% of the cost of running a dairy so I asked them to see if they changed the ration during the crisis and it was very interesting to know that the only part of the ration that was not modified or decreased was hay. Dr. Chahene did say that supplements and extra nutritional additives were reduced in an effort to lower input costs.