An evaluation of supplementation strategies throughout the grazing season on performance of management intensively grazed lactating Holstein cows

Contemporary environmental, societal and market forces, favour a less resource intensive approach to livestock production and encourage pasture-based ruminant agriculture. There are presently 388 registered dairy farms in N.S., 105 (27%) that confine their cows year round and 283 (73%) that pasture their cows during the summer (ADLIC, 1998). Confinement management of dairy cows is both energy and capital intensive because it requires mechanized crop production and harvesting, and more facilities for animal housing and feed storage.;Challenges that require further research to encourage wider adoption of grazing include developing successful strategies for smooth transitions from the barn to pasture in the spring and from pasture to barn in the fall; for supplementing high yielding cows; and feeding during times of drought and sparse pasture. The goal of this project was to evaluate supplementation strategies on the performance of management intensively grazed lactating Holstein cows during all stages of a grazing year. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)...