October 1999
Volume 2, Issue 7
INSIDE THIS ISSUE
Handling Dairy Manure, R. Stowell
The Value and Common Sense of Job Descriptions, B. Erven
Roasted Soybeans and Copper Increase Spontaneous Oxidized Milk Flavor,
J. S. Timmons and D. L. Palmquist
Are you Managing for Runoff Control?, J. Smith
Now That the Forages are Harvested..., M. L. Eastridge
Tour Announcement
HANDLING DAIRY MANURE
Richard Stowell, Ph..D.
Department of Food, Agricultural, and Biological Engineering
A progressive dairy producer must consider ways of handling and managing manure that will prove reliable, efficient and economical into the coming years. Unfortunately, there is no single system of choice that will satisfy the needs of the variety of operations in place today or being planned. Experience and research have improved our ability to evaluate systems and make recommendations, however, and I will summarize a few of those key points.
The choice of bedding material is critical to the implementation of a good manure handling system. Changing a system of facilities to handle manure that is laden with a bedding material that was not accounted for in the system’s design is very frustrating and potentially costly, if not unworkable.
The design of stall bed used in freestalls largely determines the bedding material that is selected. Two stall-bed designs have risen to the top as the choices of managers seeking cow comfort: the deep bed of sand and the baffled mattress with a covering of loose bedding, usually wood shavings or some other organic material. On the basis of cow comfort and performance alone, sand-based stalls have advantages over their mattress-based counterparts when given similar management attention. Producers need to evaluate (obtain an evaluation of) the expected costs/benefits of each of these designs to cow performance on their own operation.
Also, consider the available and preferred means of applying manure onto cropland. If all or most of the manure must be pumped a long distance, irrigated or injected, sand must be separated from the manure stream or mattresses should be used instead of sand-based stalls. On the other hand, if all or most of the manure is to be handled using a front-end loader and spread using a box or V-spreader, there is little or no advantage of handling loose manure from mattress-based stalls. In most cases, the available options for handling manure lie somewhere between these extremes, meaning either stall-bed design and bedding material could be used and comparisons should be made on an individual, system basis that includes producer preferences.
Given the bedding material, a handling system can be put together that suitably matches manure characteristics with prioritized facility and management needs. Sand-laden manure should be handled in one of the following ways:
THE VALUE AND COMMON SENSE OF JOB DESCRIPTIONS
Bernie Erven, Ph.D.
The Ohio State University
Department of Agricultural, Environmental and Development Economics
The dairy world has an interesting job description gap. Most dairy farm employees want job descriptions. Few dairy farmers provide them. More important, dairy farmers who work with their employees to write and use job descriptions praise their benefits. Most labor management specialists highly recommend job descriptions.
We start with an employee perspective. “Why didn’t you tell me what the job really is when you hired me?” “Why should I get blamed for not doing something that I didn’t know I was supposed to do?” “How can you expect me to do what you want, the way you want it done, and at exactly the right time if you haven’t taken the time to tell me?” We should expect these reasonable questions from people who do not have job descriptions.
Dairy employers also have questions. “Must I accept an employee saying no to something that needs to be done because it wasn’t precisely explained in her job description.” “No two days are alike so how can a job description cover everything that will come up?” “Why aren’t milker, and worker perfectly good job descriptions?” These too are reasonable questions.
Job descriptions gain support because they clarify duties and responsibilities, provide performance standards to be achieved and improve communication. They also help to sell jobs to recruits, develop training programs, motivate employees, make evaluation simpler, reduce turnover and reduce chances of litigation.
An effective job description need not be a long, detailed and legalistic document. One page is often enough. The job description should include at least a job title, a one or two-sentence overview of the job, a list of duties, percentage of time devoted to each duty, who the supervisor is and qualifications for a person to successfully do the job.
Some tips on writing your first job descriptions or improving the ones you have are:
1. Involve your employees. They best understand what they are now doing. You are not ready to write a job description until you clearly understand the job and what you expect the person in the job to accomplish. Avoid the impression that you don’t have job descriptions because you have not thought through each job.
2. Accept that writing job descriptions is time consuming in the short-run and timesaving in the long-run.
3. Get copies of job descriptions from other dairy farmers and from nonfarm employers in your community.
4. Write the duties first and then add a title and summary that fits the duties.
5. Limit the number of major duties to eight or fewer. Shoot for four or five major duties. Expand on major duties by listing sub-duties.
6. State one duty as an elastic clause, e.g., assist with other duties for the good of co-workers and the business.
7. Begin each duty with an action verb, e.g., check, clean, move, help, repair and feed.
8. Avoid words that have many different meanings among dairy employees, e.g., milker, feeder and mechanic.
9. Match the job description to the actual job. Describe the job as it is. Avoid adding glamorous but unreal duties. Assistant herdsman may be an attractive title. Avoid using it to describe a position that is 90 per cent milking. If a job requires a person to be a generalist, e.g., dairy, crops and machinery, reflect the need for flexibility in the duties.
10. Take advantage of vacancies as a time to write new job descriptions.
11. Keep job descriptions current and accurate. Making review and update of job descriptions part of annual performance reviews avoids the job descriptions becoming useless paperwork.
In summary, job descriptions have great value for both employers and
employees. David Sumrall, a Colorado dairy manager writing in the September
10, 1999 Hoard’s Dairyman, wonderfully challenged other dairy managers,
“We simply must do a better job of informing and training our workers.
How can you expect an employee to do what you want, the way you want it
done, and on your time schedule when you will not even take the time to
tell them what it is you want done?”.
ROASTED SOYBEANS AND COPPER INCREASE SPONTANEOUS OXIDIZED MILK FLAVOR
Jennifer S. Timmons, M. S., Donald L. Palmquist, Ph.D.
Department of Animal Sciences
Ration composition of lactating cows has been altered over recent years to supply the energy required to support enhanced milk production. One way to accomplish this is to supplement with a fat source such as roasted soybeans. Roasted soybeans contain approximately 20% fat that is high in polyunsaturated fatty acids: 50% to 55% linoleic acid (18:2) and 6% to 8% linolenic acid (18:3). Some of the unsaturated fatty acids in roasted soybeans bypass the rumen and are digested in the small intestine; these are directly incorporated into the milk fat. The polyunsaturated fatty acids are highly susceptible to oxidation; oxidation of milk fat leads to development of spontaneous oxidized flavor (SOF) in milk. The flavor in some cases occurs instantaneously from the cow and intensifies in susceptible milk during refrigerated storage. Milk may taste normal at the farm, but develops a flavor characterized as tasting metallic, cardboardy or tallowy with time. The off-flavor may cause consumer rejection, a shorter shelf life and a decrease in the demand for milk. In 1996, Reiter Dairy / Dean Foods contacted OARDC about this off-flavor problem that had lead to rejection of tanker loads of milk. An initial survey showed that polyunsaturated fatty acids were higher in milk from herds fed whole soybeans. OARDC then obtained funding through Dairy Management Incorporated to investigate causative factors related to off-flavor development and to explore possible preventative measures. A commercial field study was performed to determine the role of roasted soybeans (RSB) and milk components in off-flavor development. Twenty commercial dairy farms in the vicinity of Wooster, Ohio were selected based on the feeding of roasted soybeans. Herd size ranged from 35 to 432 head with a RHA of 14,500 to 30,800 lbs/yr. Cows in herds were fed typical Ohio diets of haylage, corn silage, high moisture corn, and a range of 0 to 15% of the diet dry matter as RSB. Bulk tank milk was sampled after the AM milking prior to milk tanker pickup and analyzed for milk fat composition, vitamins, minerals and off-flavor development on 0, 3, and 8 days post-sampling. The development of SOF was related to an increase in the polyunsaturated milk fatty acids (linoleic and linolenic acids), caused by the feeding of RSB, a decrease in milk antioxidants (vitamin E and beta-carotene) with increasing time of storage, and increased concentrations of pro-oxidants (copper).
From the data an equation was developed to predict the development of
off-flavor at 8 days post-sampling (approximate time for fluid milk to
be bottled, shelved, and purchased by the consumer). The development
of SOF was found to be predictable, with one half of the variation in flavor
attributed to the amounts of xanthine oxidase (a pro-oxidative enzyme),
copper and polyunsaturated fatty acids in the milk. According to
these prediction equations, feeding RSB at 15% of the diet DM in the presence
of low copper from feed and water would not develop off-flavor. However,
in the presence of high copper the amount of RSB (% of diet DM) would need
to be decreased below 15% of diet DM to prevent the development of off-flavor.
Dairy processors using the prediction equation could pool milk according
to its potential for development of SOF. Milk likely to produce oxidized
flavor could be converted to alternative uses and milk with low susceptibility
to oxidation could be used for fluid milk. These measures should
increase shelf life of milk and diminish consumer rejection of milk due
to off-flavor. It should be noted that spontaneous oxidized milk
flavor is not a wide-spread problem currently because of the low concentration
of polyunsaturated fatty acids in the milk supply (3 - 8%); further, homogenization
greatly protects against oxidized flavor development. However, the
potential for off-flavor development exists, especially with the increased
feeding of RSB as a bypass protein and a fat source. Therefore, the cost
of potential dumped milk must be weighed against the advantages of feeding
high levels of RSB. Farmers feeding RSB need to be aware of the potential
of milk with higher unsaturation to develop off-flavor and the repercussions
this may have on the dairy industry in the future.
ARE YOU MANAGING FOR RUNOFF CONTROL?
John Smith
The Ohio State University Extension, ANR Extension Agent
Auglaize County
As laws become stricter, you will have to make a greater effort to control runoff and fertilize by soil test. Runoff potential is affected by numerous factors, some of which are fixed by the nature and location of the field and others that can be altered through management. Quantitative evaluation of these factors can be difficult because the factors either have not been identified or they interact with each other in field conditions. Therefore, runoff potential must be determined on a site-by-site basis.
Naturally occurring factors that affect runoff potential include:
1. Location of the receiving stream. Runoff to streams is much more likely when the field selected for manure, fertilizer or pesticide application is bordered by a stream or other surface water rather than separated from surface water by another field, pasture, wooded area, or other suitable buffer strip.
2. Slope steepness and complexity. Runoff is more likely from fields sloping steeply and evenly toward a stream than fields with a gentle or no slope. Fields with depression areas between the area of manure, fertilizer or pesticide application and the stream have a lower potential for stream contamination.
3. Soil and weather conditions. Runoff is more likely when application is made on frozen, saturated, or compacted soils, especially during months when rainfall exceeds evaporation.
4. Soil type. Soils with low infiltration rates and/or soils with limited water-holding capacity are more likely to promote runoff than soil types that absorb and retain large quantities of water.
Management factors that can alter the potential for manure, fertilizer, or pesticide runoff into a stream include:
1. Conservation Tillage. Mulch-till, Ridge-till or No-till farming will reduce runoff.
2. Buffer strips. Properly designed buffer strips along stream banks adjacent to sites with high-runoff potential can reduce the amount of contaminants entering a stream.
3. Soil surface condition. A rough or residue covered soil surface reduces runoff compared with soil surfaces that are smooth or have very little residue cover. You should plan to have at least 30% residue cover left on the field after planting.
4. Manure characteristics, application rate and application method. Liquid manure applied at rates greater than the soil infiltration rate or water-holding capacity can promote runoff. Injection or incorporation of applied manure reduces chances of runoff.
5. Pre-existing soil nutrient status. More nutrients are likely to move off fields when soils have a high crop-nutrient or soil-test level rather than lower crop-nutrient test levels. Don’t Guess – Soil Test.
6. Surface and subsurface drainage. Proper installation and routine maintenance of surface and subsurface drainage systems can reduce the potential for runoff or direct discharge of manure, fertilizer or pesticides from land application.
It is up to you to control runoff from your fields.
NOW THAT THE FORAGES ARE HARVESTED...
Maurice Eastridge, Ph.D.
The Ohio State University
Department of Animal Sciences
TOUR ANNOUNCEMENT
More information on handling dairy manure can be gained by attending
a tour in the Licking/Knox County region on Tuesday, October 26th.
We will visit three dairies that have added new facilities and cows, had
to weigh their options for handling manure, and selected a (differing)
method that works for their operation. For more information (including
farm names and map location) or to make lunch reservations, please contact
the Licking County SWCD (740/349-6920) or Knox SWCD (740/392-7806).
All educational programs conducted by The Ohio State University
Extension are available to clientele on a nondiscriminatory basis without
regard to race, color, creed, religion, sexual orientation, national origin,
gender, age, disability or Vietnam-era veteran status.
Issued in furtherance of Cooperative Extension work,
Acts of May 8 and June 30, 1914, in cooperation with the U.S. Department
of Agriculture, Keith L. Smith, Director, The Ohio State University Extension.