From Traditional Confinement Dairying to Grazing Replacement Heifers

From Traditional Confinement Dairying to Grazing Replacement Heifers

I would like to share an account of a transition from a conventional dairy operation to our current Management Intensive Grazing (MIG) enterprise. In 1974, I joined my father who at that time had been dairying on a 265 acre farm in Lincoln County, Kentucky for twenty five years. We fed our registered Holsteins corn silage and alfalfa haylage and purchased a manufactured feed. Our herd of 70 Holsteins spent most of their time on concrete. We did make an effort to allow access to an exercise lot when weather permitted. However, during the greater part of the 1990’s we spent a great deal of time treating various hoof problems. These problems included heel warts, abscesses and foot rot. I was spending more time trimming hooves than managing the dairy. Milk production was more than adequate, but herd health was not. We had always raised our own heifers, mostly on pasture; their health was acceptable. Foot problems were almost non-existent for these heifers.