Dairy feed

It can be down right deadly Tonight Reporter Sarah Gustin explains the importance of keeping mold out of your dairy cow s ration Mold for dinner I ll pass and I think your cow would probably say the same J W Schroeder Dairy Specialist The thing to keep in mind is you might have low levels of a particular mycotoxin but you may have more than one mycotoxin and then there could be some synergistic effect A wet year made for a moldy year That mold throughout your corn field can produce posions otherwise known as mycotoxins Dairy Specialist J W Schroeder says of 1000 samples of corn throughout the upper midewst that were tested for mycotoxins 95 were in the safe range J W Schroeder Dairy Specialist The thing you need to keep in mind is if you have mold doesn t mean you are going to have mycotoxin and if you don t have mold doesn t mean you aren t going to have mycotoxins Schroeder says the average dairy cow probably eats 8 to 12 pounds of corn a day The problem is corn isn t the only feed on their plate J W Schroeder Dairy Specialist Just keep in ind mycotoxins can be in hay silages feeds concentrates and byproducts Now that is not the fault of the by products but the ethanol gets about a 1 3 of the corn in this country and when that is processed the by prodcut ddgs is going to have if it has mycoxins in it going to be concentated 2 to three times It gets to be an accumlulation of potential risk Schroeder says feeds need to be tested Because you might have a problem before you even know it J W Schroeder Dairy Specialist It can manifest itself in many ways One is lamenitis or sore feet some of the mycotoxins affect the reproductive system others affect the digestive system or rumintation and sometimes it s just an issue of palatabilty where the cattle eat less If they eat less they produce less If an animal does eat too much infested grain death can occur Reporting for KX News I am Sarah Gustin A full mycotoxin screening is 90 dollars Any corn ears or grain can be sent to the NDSU Veternary Diagnostic Lab in Fargo