Mycotoxins

By Dr. Michelle Der Bedrosian, Vita Plus forage products and dairy technical specialist
The excessive rainfall this growing season has many forages going into the bunker wetter than normal, which predisposes these feeds to some bad bacteria. If you suspect you have some bad bacteria in your feeds, here are some options you have available.

It's a week before harvest and suddenly a hail storm blows through and wipes out the crop you have worked so hard to grow this season.  What can you do?  Two years ago, City Slickers Farm, LLC found themselves in this situation and salvaged most of their crop with quick, proactive thinking.

By Dr. Damon Smith, University of Wisconsin-Madison assistant professor and extension specialist
Treating field corn or grain with fungicide has become a common practice in the Midwest.  More recently, research has been done on its application to corn for silage.  While it may not increase yield, it may help improve feed conversion.

A "good" joke, but it’s not funny when those molds appear in your feed and start causing trouble.

By Jon Urness, Vita Plus national forage specialist, and Dr. Michelle Windle, Vita Plus forage products and dairy technical service specialist
Last November, we received a call from a Vita Plus consultant in southwest Wisconsin asking about some yeast and mold counts.  He was helping a producer determine the effects of mixing a TMR and feeding it only once every three days to his prefresh group.  He took samples on each of the three days and submitted them for analysis.  He repeated this twice (Mix 1 and 2 from Farm A).  We sampled another mix for comparison in a similar way (Farm B).