Troubleshooting Low Milk Production

Experience has shown that there is normally not just one area that is causing low milk production or performance. It is usually multifaceted, which makes it even more difficult to find and correct the problem. The other challenge is there may not be a cost effective immediate solution.. There are some major steps in drilling down to the bottleneck(s) affecting performance.

• Evaluate herd records: peak milk, days in milk, performance by lactation number, grouping strategies, milk quality, reproduction, forage and TMR analysis reports.
• Feed management weighs heavily: ration consistency, frequency of feeding and ration push-ups, time away from feed, sorting, and particle sizeC

Continual monitoring of herd data and management are necessary to confirm that practices have been properly implemented and are working. Click here to read the full article and how to build an action plan to troubleshoot low milk production.