Forage Profile: Jeremy Holst

Describe your farm and facilities. We have a freestall barn with a pasture that we rotationally graze. My wife, Jessi; our two kids, Adaline and Lane; and a couple part-time hired help milk in a double-8 parlor. We raise all our own replacements and sell bull calves at about a week old.

What forages do you harvest? Pasture, corn silage, dry corn, haylage and dry hay. Our alfalfa is an alfalfa-grass mix.

How many acres of crops do you raise? 200 total, with 50 acres of pasture that we cut once, and then the cattle graze it the rest of the summer.

Describe the rations for your livestock. Heifers and dry cows are fed a dry hay and corn silage ration. Milk cows get a 50/50 haylage and corn silage ration. In the summer, everybody is on pasture, too. We rotate our pasture daily so the cows always have fresh grass.

What quality and quantity do you harvest of each crop? For corn silage, I shoot for 25 tons with mid-60s for moisture. For haylage, we cut every 28-30 days, and so we will get four cuttings a year.

Describe your harvesting techniques for alfalfa and corn silage. We have our own pull-type chopper and baler, so we do it all ourselves. All corn silage and haylage for the milk cows is stored in bags. Heifer and dry cow silage is stored in a silo. A neighbor has a combine and will combine the dry corn for us.

What techniques do you use to store, manage and feed your forages? We have ag bags on a gravel pad; that is where the milk cow feed is stored. We do our best to keep the pad dry and clean. We use a skid loader to load the feed into our vertical total mixed ration wagon. Dry cows and heifers get straight silage in a bunker with dry hay and are on pasture during the summer, until winter sets in.

How does quality forages play in the production goals for your herd? They seem to be healthier and produce more with high-quality feed. Having them on pasture seems to help with their feet and legs. These factors all contribute to the strong longevity of our herd. Our oldest cow is 16, and we have at least five that are over 10 years old.

What management or harvesting techniques have you changed that have made a notable difference in forage quality? Adding some grass to alfalfa has helped, as it aids in digestibility. With corn silage, we don’t use brown mid-rib corn; we use a flour kernel to increase our digestibility. Using the grass with the alfalfa has been the best thing for our dairy.

Describe a challenge you overcame in reaching your forage quality goals. Getting a tedder for dry hay. We do a lot of dry hay for ourselves and to sell. Growing up, all we did was dry hay, but now, it is so hard to get good-quality dry hay. Having the tedder helps with that.