Economic Aspects of Nutritional Monitoring on Dairy Herds

Abstract

Veterinary nutritional services are an integral part of the herd health services offered to dairy clients (1). Nutrition plays a vital role influencing the production efficiency of the herd both on a disease and input cost level. Feeds form approximately 40-60% of the total input cost of milk production. More importantly the feeding program is a cost center that can be effectively controlled at minimal additional cost. The veterinarian can play the vital role in providing unbiased nutritional services at relatively low cost. The purpose of this talk is to go over the nature of this service.

A nutritional service can be broken down into three main areas of routine activity in which the veterinarian can play a vital role: I) Feed Selection, 2) Feed distribution, and 3) Monitoring production efficiency. Each of these areas will be discussed in detail.