Forage Profile: John Miller

Describe your farm and facilities. My wife, Kris, and I started farming in 1991 with only a few cows. We now milk 390 cows in a double-10 herringbone parlor. My son, Tom, is also a co-owner of the farm, JM Dairy. Our daughter, Haley, and her husband, Jake, and our other sons, Joe and Nick, work off the farm and help when they have time.

What forages do you harvest? We harvest rye as a cover crop in the fall after haylage and corn silage have been harvested. We also get sweet corn silage from the candy factory for about half the year, mostly in the winter.

How many acres of crops do you raise? We raise 700 acres of crops.

Describe the rations for your livestock. The lactating cow ration is 44% corn silage dry matter. Other ingredients in the total mixed ration are high-moisture corn silage, wheat straw and rye silage. Our heifers get fed about the same diet, with 39% corn silage dry matter and a heifer mix. All the other feed components we feed the cows just differ slightly in percentages.

What quality and quantity do you harvest of each crop? We mainly look for the quality of the crop. We watch the hay crop closely, and when it gets to the right maturity, we harvest. Between our first and second cutting this year, there were only 24 days; we plan to cut the third crop just 28 days from the second cutting, depending on weather.

Describe your harvesting techniques for alfalfa and corn silage. Everything is chopped. We hire a custom chopper; as long as he is on the ground, I have no interest in running my own.

What techniques do you use to store, manage and feed your forages? We mainly use piles but also have a few bunkers. I like using piles because there isn’t a limit on what you can put in. Both have their advantages and disadvantages.

How does quality forage play in the production goals for your herd? Having good quality forage means having good production. Once you have bad forage, your production goes down.

What management or harvesting techniques have you changed that have made a notable difference in forage quality? We used to chop our own crop, but having a custom chopper come in has made a huge difference in time. Now, we can chop 300 acres in a day. Our chopper guy really seems like he will bend over backward for us, which makes a huge difference.

Describe a challenge you overcame in reaching your forage quality goals. I don’t feel like we have had many challenges. Sometimes, the question of whether we should use high-moisture corn comes up, but that also comes with its own list of challenges. We would need to put up our own dryer and get it at the right moisture level. That itself can be a challenge.