Dairy Services

 

Our goal is to visit all participating dairy farms every 4-8 weeks in order to collect/record data. This will allow GAPS FS sales support staff to evaluate the quality of silage within a bunker, track that quality throughout the year and help make recommendations as needed to increase milk production and decrease spoilage. Our aim is to economically benefit each farm by providing data and making recommendations.

 

Services GAPS FS Provide:

 

• NIR Machine: Near-infrared spectroscopy. Near-infrared spectroscopy is widely applied in agriculture for determining the quality of forages, grains, and grain products, oilseeds,, fats, and oils, dairy products, eggs, meat, and other agricultural products. It is widely used to quantify the composition of agricultural products because it meets the criteria of being accurate, reliable, rapid, and non-destructive. We measure moisture, starch, crude protein, acid detergent fiber, neutral detergent fiber, ash, and crude fat. 

 

 

• Partial Separator/ Shaker Box: The Penn State Particle Separator provides a tool to quantitatively determine the particle size of forages and total mixed rations. Having the proper particle size distribution of feeds is an important part of ration formulation and we can provide data to show what a grower is currently feeding and if changes could be beneficial. 

 

• Core Density Samples: an important factor influencing silage quality is the density of the silage mass. Optimum silage fermentation occurs in an oxygen free environment. More dense silage provides ideal conditions for rapid oxygen depletion at the start of fermentation and minimizes the introduction of oxygen back into the silage pack during storage and feed out. 

 

• We can collect samples of any feed products and send them to DAIRYLAND for analysis. There may be an additional charge for samples sent to DAIRYLAND. This is only done when the grower specifically requests.