PHOTO: DAN LOPER
Nutrition in California, points to another factor that was cen- tral to the early days of the TMR story. “Beef feed lots,” he says, “were humming.”
Feedlot origin Dr Dan Loper says he came up with the idea of TMR in the early 1970s. He had finished his PhD and was working for a feed company in southern California, when he observed beef feed lots where mixer trucks were being used to produce a well-blended ration. He realised that the same thing could be done on larger dairy farms in the state – and beyond. “At the feed yards, they were using mixer boxes, front-end loaders and had a barn for the storage of commodities,” he says. “I was aware that dairy producers had loaders and barns; they just needed mixer boxes.” Loper decided to quit his job and become the first person to start a dairy nutrition business in the US, Loper Systems. In 1974, he held a one- day seminar in Chino, California for dairy farmers to learn how to do TMR on their farms. The three US companies that made mixer boxes at the time sent representatives, and they also brought their models to the parking lot so that the dairy farmers could see them in action. But the feed companies sent representatives too. The owners had realised quickly that TMR mixing on dairy farms – with direct delivery of commodities from brokers to farms – would cut their busi- ness drastically. “They sat there in the front row with tape
recorders to intimidate me,” says Dr Loper. “But not long af- ter, I held another seminar in northern California. Then it grew and grew, and eventually, I hired other PhDs, six in to- tal. We went state by state east to New Mexico to Texas, north to Colorado, to all the states west of Kansas. Each one of his PhDs managed about 25 dairies, and eventually, one by one, broke away and started their own successful dairy nutrition consulting firms. Dr Daugherty was one of these PhDs. He started at Loper Systems in 1980 and stayed there for about six years. Dr Calvin Willis, owner of CMW Nutrition in Southern
TMR is consid- ered by many to be the biggest development for the global dairy industry in the last 50 years.
Dr Dan Loper with award-win- ning clients from Arizona.
▶ ALL ABOUT FEED | Volume 29, No. 8, 2021
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