father and his uncle used to run the farm before, hence the name Statz Brothers. The home farm was expanded with the second location in 2015, where the majority of the cows (3,300) are housed and milked. When this location came into the hands of the Statz family, the family decided to renovate the farm and build a dedicated feed centre to minimise shrink and hence optimise the dairy farm operation. Dia- mond V had developed the so-called TMR Audit in 2008 and the company has expanded this service with designing tailor made feed centres at dairy farms. The TMR Audit is a system to monitor and improve the cattle feeding process as well as the consistency and homogeneity of the ration consumed by each animal. It addresses feedstuffs storage, ingredient preparation and proportioning, TMR mixing, ration presenta- tion, and utilisation. A well-designed feed centre that mini- mises shrink and optimises the quality of the raw materials is a logical part of the holistic approach to optimise feeding practices, hence minimising costs for the farmer. Greene explains that there are key things to remember when designing a feed centre. “Just to name a few: you have to be able to unload various types of delivery trucks so that you can take advantage of opportunity ingredient buys. Certain
delivery trucks can have lower freight rates because they can haul more weight. The facility should also be completely un- der roof and out of the weather. Wind is a major cause of in- creased shrink. Also important is to include a monitoring sys- tem to make sure the efficiencies you are trying to achieve are being accomplished, to find bottlenecks that may be oc- curring, and to troubleshoot problems that might occur.” All of these key points have been incorporated by the Statz fam- ily in their feed centre. The building that houses the feed centre is a little more than 3,400 square metres, with a total of 10 bunkers for all the different raw materials, two station- ary mixers and an operations room. Each day the feed centre mixes 37 loads, or a little over 450 metric tons of feed for heifers and cows at both locations.
Theory and practice Todd Follendorf from Cornerstone Dairy Nutrition in Wauna- kee, Wisconsin is the nutritionist at the Statz Brothers farm. He explains why he is so happy with the new feed facility: “Shrink control has been the main reason why we built the whole facility. Before, we had shrink percentages around 10% every single day. Now, we have reduced this to 2 to 3%.”
▶ ALL ABOUT FEED | Volume 25, No. 10, 2017 7
Twin TMR mixers in the feed cen- tre at the Statz Brothers dairy operation in Marshall, Wis- consin, USA.
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