Good nutrition, including a balanced properly formulated diet keep the cattle healthy and productive while they are in our care. Our dairy needs to formulate several different diets specific to the animal needs and deliver them fresh to our cattle each day. We work with Brad, Magdalena and James from ProAgtive Technologies, who have over 35 years of experience balancing cattle’s needs for vitamins, minerals and energy. Animal nutritional needs change as cattle mature and begin the process of producing milk. As an example, a cow producing 100 lbs. of milk will eat well over 100 lbs. of feed that is high in energy versus an animal getting ready to have a calf which will eat only 40 lbs. of feed. Feeding the cattle is one of our largest expenses. Over this past year we have focused a great amount of attention and added a lot of expenditure into updating how we feed our animals. We purchased an upgraded feed mixer, which is like a blender that you have in your home with the exception that this one mixes 42,000 lbs. of feed at a time! Our nutritionist formulates a diet for a group of cattle, enters the formula into the computer and the computer sends it to the mixer. The mixer has a scale on it and a computer screen. The mixer operator selects which group of cattle he wants to feed, then the ingredient is displayed on the screen and while the ingredient is added the display counts the lbs. down to zero. The screen then advances to the next ingredient, all the while the feed program keeps track of each ingredient, the amount used and how accurate the person mixing is at adding ingredients and mixing that batch of feed. Once all the ingredients are added the operator starts the mixer, mixing the batch for a set amount of time and then delivers the new fresh diet to the group of selected cattle. The feeds are tested continually for moisture; nutritional value; molds and yeast to make sure we have quality feed for the cattle. Fourteen loads are fed each day to the animals. We have partnered with Agra Industries of Merrill to install overhead bins that store our bulk proteins, minerals, vitamins and corn. The mixer pulls underneath the bin and the operator watches the scale readout while pushing a button to open an electric door to add ingredients. This is a very fast and accurate system that keeps the ingredients dry while minimizing shrinkage. Several of the ingredients in our feed mixture cost several hundred dollars a ton, so time, accuracy and efficiency are very important. The bins are filled from semis that deliver the feed into an auger and a bucket elevator that drops the feed into the overhead bins. A semi load of feed can be emptied in only 15 minutes. We are very pleased with the new efficiencies with the new mixer, computer system and overhead bin upgrades.