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How Do You Manage Feeding Groups on Your Farm?

rick.dekker

Hey everyone,

I’ve been thinking more about how we manage our feeding groups, especially as herd size and production levels shift. Right now, we’re feeding two different groups mainly fresh cows and the rest but I’m wondering if anyone here has found real benefits from going beyond that.

Do you split based on lactation stage, production level, or even robot visits? How detailed do you go without overcomplicating things?

For those of you using Horizon, are you using the feeding groups in there to guide your ration strategy or mainly just for grouping in the barn?

I’d love to hear what setups are working for others or if anyone simplified things and found it worked just as well.

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    I got been kinda thinking about that too. We started with just fresh cows and everyone else, but as the herd got bigger and production changed, we found splitting into a few more groups actually helped. We went with 3 groups fresh cows, high producers, and then the rest. It’s not super complicated but lets us feed them a bit better, especially energy and protein for the high producers. With robots we do watch how often cows visit too more visits usually means they get a bit different feed to keep them going strong. For Horizon, we use the feeding groups mostly to plan the rations, not just for where cows hang out. Makes it easier to adjust as cows move through stages or their production changes. That said if you’re short on time or staff keeping it simple with just a couple groups works pretty well too. Sometimes less is more honestly. What are you doing now? How big’s your herd?

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    I got been kinda thinking about that too. We started with just fresh cows and everyone else, but as the herd got bigger and production changed, we found splitting into a few more groups actually helped. We went with 3 groups fresh cows, high producers, and then the rest. It’s not super complicated but lets us feed them a bit better, especially energy and protein for the high producers. With robots we do watch how often cows visit too more visits usually means they get a bit different feed to keep them going strong. For Horizon, we use the feeding groups mostly to plan the rations, not just for where cows hang out. Makes it easier to adjust as cows move through stages or their production changes. That said if you’re short on time or staff keeping it simple with just a couple groups works pretty well too. Sometimes less is more honestly. What are you doing now? How big’s your herd?

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