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Dairy Cattle

Dairy cow performance and productivity challenges

If you’re a dairy farmer, you will know only too well the many challenges confronting your business on a daily basis such as globalization of supply, milk output exceeding demand, and volatile feed prices. Gross energy feed conversion is also inefficient, with only 26 percent of gross energy consumed getting transferred to milk.

Nutritional challenges around early lactation also can threaten herd productivity if not managed properly. Unbalanced nutritional choices for young calves also can impact future milk yield.

Another threat to herd productivity is sub-optimal calf and heifer raising. Raising heifers as replacement stock is an important, but often neglected, area. Dairy heifers do not grow at the required rate to hit the expected targets for insemination and calving. The end result is that heifers calve too old, without the required development to ensure they have long and productive lives in the herd. This drains profitability in an already challenged industry.

Dairy cow solutions

We offer a wide range of nutritional solutions and have a deep understanding of nutrient values that will help you make optimal use of the raw materials and forages that are available in your region.

Custom feeding solutions

Whether you are looking for complete feed, premixes or concentrates, we will combine practical knowledge with scientific excellence to ensure that our solutions meet your animal’s exact nutritional needs:

  • 500+ research and development professionals, 200+ of who are PHDs
  • 30 Near-Infra-Red (NIR) experts, along with NIR machines around the word and a global ingredient database of more than 2 million samples per year
  • 14 wet chemistry labs
  • 15 Technical Application Centers

Central to our nutritional solutions is the Cargill Nutrition System. This uses big data analysis and tools to mine information from the world’s largest database of nutrient samples, cutting-edge research from our innovation teams, and internal know-how in feeding animals and formulating diets. A key element of this system is MAX®, which helps you measure, evaluate and record nutrient variables, so you can deliver an optimum diet that promotes good health in your cows and maximizes nutritional values and thus impact positively the production of the highest-quality dairy products at the best cost.

Best-in-class feed additives

To further enhance animal performance and your profitability, we offer effective feed additives, including:

  • NutriTek®, Diamond V’s most advanced immune health product for all dairy animals, providing a new level of support for optimal gut health, immune strength and overall producer profitability.
  • Proviox™, a specific blend of nutritional anti-oxidants which reinforces the nutritional anti-oxidant status of the animal
  • I.C.E , a nutritional solution that helps animals maintain their hydration status in high temperatures conditions.

We also offer Notox™, a range of solutions (both feeding programmes and a unique online risk management tool, Notox™ Online, that uses data from the world’s largest pattern database to support animal performance under mycotoxin challenge conditions.

Beyond nutrition

Our ruminant experts can not only help you get the best nutrients for your animal but also can help you manage business risk and market volatility using tools for inventory, scenario planning, risk management and pricing.

Lactation

We help dairy customers exceed milk production goals by supporting all aspects of the operation and running nutritional programs centered on custom nutrition at the right stage of production.

Calf & Heifer

Good nutrition and management during early life can have long-term effects on the lactation of dairy cows, resulting in increased lifetime milk production, as well as fewer health problems and treatments per cow.

Dairy Enteligen®

Dairy Enteligen® is a decision-making tool that combines on-farm expertise from your Cargill dairy team with multiple data sources to help uncover more insights, prioritize actions, and help you see the financial impact of decisions.

Feed inputs and products for animal feed manufacturers.