A TALE OF TWO FEED BUNKS

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” I must admit, I have never read the Charles Dicken novel, A Tale of Two Cities, which opens with those phrases. But I am familiar with the contrast described. I do believe, in all my years of farm visits, I have seen the best of feed bunks and the worst of feed bunks.

My standard for bunk management in robot barns is simple. Every cow has to be confident that whenever she goes to the bunk, she can get a full meal efficiently. It’s simple, but there’s really not much wiggle room. “Every” cow includes the timid cows. “Whenever” includes an hour before new feed is delivered. “Full” is satisfied and ready to go do something else. “Efficiently” means putting her muzzle in a pile of feed and coming away with her mouth full. I recently visited feed bunks that were neither the best, nor the worst, but each had some problems that made it less likely that cows would find their way to the robot.

The first farm had free traffic. They did an excellent job keeping fresh PMR in front of the

cows all the time. The ration was balanced, and the feeder followed the scale precisely. But cows were not coming to the robot. We found 2 problems. First, the ration included a significant amount of dry hay. They relied on the TMR mixer to chop the hay. We used a shaker box to demonstrate that the mixer left enough long pieces to allow the cows to sort and select the feed they preferred. The ration the cow received depended on when and where she came to the bunk. Second, a fresh sample showed that the moisture of the silage was not accurate. These minor errors affected the energy balance between the PMR and the robots. In the free flow barn, the imbalance was enough to depress visits to the robots. It was the best of bunks (quality feed, always available) and the worst of bunks (inconsistent because of moisture and particle size).

The other farm was guided flow. Their feeding error was more common, and more obvious. Fresh, high-quality forage was delivered to the bunk at the same time every day, but the amount was not adjusted correctly. Cows routinely ran out of feed – anywhere from 2 to 6 hours before fresh feed was delivered. Cows were not confident that feed would be available so they did not go to the bunk, they did not go to the sort gate, and they did not get to the robots. The problem was compounded because the cows were pushed through the sort gate to the feed bunk when the alley behind the stalls needed to be scraped. The traffic overloaded the commitment pen, so cows were sent to the feed bunk even though they had milking permission. If feed had been available, the cows at the bunk might have eaten and returned to robots. Instead, they waited at a bare bunk for feed to be delivered. The cycle was repeated when the barn was scraped in the afternoon, while robots were idle in the middle of the day and the middle of the night. It was the best of bunks (the right feed was delivered consistently) and the worst of bunks (the quantity was not adjusted correctly).

Do you have the best of bunks or the worst of bunks? Our cameras and herd management audits can help you find bottlenecks and correct them.