WEBVTT 00:00:11.720 --> 00:00:15.060 Breaking free from the chains of the past Where 00:00:15.060 --> 00:00:18.820 truth moves faster than a Holstein calf No law 00:00:18.820 --> 00:00:21.660 waiting on some printed page We're charting new 00:00:21.660 --> 00:00:25.300 ground in the digital age From genomic codes 00:00:25.300 --> 00:00:29.120 to robot facts We cut through the noise, no hold 00:00:29.280 --> 00:00:32.460 them back not your daddy's dairy news tonight 00:00:32.460 --> 00:01:03.179 we're sparking Welcome back to the Bullvine Podcast, 00:01:03.420 --> 00:01:05.459 where we cut through the dairy industry noise 00:01:05.459 --> 00:01:07.319 to get you the insights that actually matter 00:01:07.319 --> 00:01:10.359 for your operation. And today we're doing another 00:01:10.359 --> 00:01:14.000 deep dive. We have a mission here. And if you've 00:01:14.000 --> 00:01:15.760 been listening for a while, you know exactly 00:01:15.760 --> 00:01:19.040 what it is. We are here to provide no BS insights. 00:01:19.319 --> 00:01:21.900 We aren't here to sell you a product. We aren't 00:01:21.900 --> 00:01:24.079 here to pat you on the back. And we certainly 00:01:24.079 --> 00:01:26.260 aren't here to tell you that. Everything is sunny 00:01:26.260 --> 00:01:29.019 and bright when the thunder is rolling in. We 00:01:29.019 --> 00:01:31.400 look at the data, we look at the market, and 00:01:31.400 --> 00:01:33.859 we tell you what is actually happening. That's 00:01:33.859 --> 00:01:36.939 the plan. And my job, as always, is to take all 00:01:36.939 --> 00:01:39.000 that high -level analysis that you love so much 00:01:39.000 --> 00:01:41.099 and filter it through the lens of, well, what 00:01:41.099 --> 00:01:43.819 actually works in the barn? Because you can have 00:01:43.819 --> 00:01:46.079 the best data in the world, but if it requires 00:01:46.079 --> 00:01:49.000 me to build a new barn or, I don't know, fire 00:01:49.000 --> 00:01:51.060 my nutritionist to implement it, it's not going 00:01:51.060 --> 00:01:53.329 to happen on Monday morning. That's fair. And 00:01:53.329 --> 00:01:56.810 today we are diving deep into a topic that fits 00:01:56.810 --> 00:01:59.709 that description perfectly. It is something most 00:01:59.709 --> 00:02:02.109 farmers look at every single day. You probably 00:02:02.109 --> 00:02:03.829 saw it this morning if you were walking the fresh 00:02:03.829 --> 00:02:07.730 pen. Oh, yeah. But the data suggests that while 00:02:07.730 --> 00:02:11.110 you see it, you are completely and I mean completely 00:02:11.110 --> 00:02:14.419 undervaluing. what it's costing you i have a 00:02:14.419 --> 00:02:15.879 feeling i know where we're going with this you're 00:02:15.879 --> 00:02:18.219 talking about that rock hard swelling on a fresh 00:02:18.219 --> 00:02:20.259 heifer exactly the kind where the utter looks 00:02:20.259 --> 00:02:22.400 like a basketball the teats are strutting out 00:02:22.400 --> 00:02:24.199 sideways and we all just kind of shrug our shoulders 00:02:24.199 --> 00:02:25.919 and say well that's part of the deal she's a 00:02:25.919 --> 00:02:28.300 heifer she'll work it out that is exactly what 00:02:28.300 --> 00:02:31.020 we were talking about yeah utter edema but we 00:02:31.020 --> 00:02:33.219 aren't just doing a biology lesson today we are 00:02:33.219 --> 00:02:37.939 calling this the 16 000 hyper tax for a reason 00:02:37.939 --> 00:02:41.000 a tax i like that because that swelling isn't 00:02:41.000 --> 00:02:43.550 just cosmetic it is bleeding your balance sheet 00:02:43.550 --> 00:02:45.990 dry, and in the current market conditions of 00:02:45.990 --> 00:02:49.150 early 2026, it is a tax you literally cannot 00:02:49.150 --> 00:02:52.569 afford to pay. $16 ,000. Now, hold on a second. 00:02:52.689 --> 00:02:55.469 That is a massive number to attach to some swelling. 00:02:55.650 --> 00:02:57.770 I saw the show notes, and I honestly thought 00:02:57.770 --> 00:03:00.530 you added an extra zero by mistake. No typo. 00:03:00.770 --> 00:03:02.789 And when we unpack the modeling later in the 00:03:02.789 --> 00:03:04.370 show, I think you're going to see it's actually, 00:03:04.490 --> 00:03:06.629 well, maybe even a little conservative. Wow. 00:03:06.770 --> 00:03:09.009 But before we get to the biology or the accounting, 00:03:09.659 --> 00:03:11.939 We have to set the stage. We are recording this 00:03:11.939 --> 00:03:15.819 in February 2026. What does the world look like 00:03:15.819 --> 00:03:20.500 for a dairy producer right now? It's tense. That's 00:03:20.500 --> 00:03:22.539 the word I'd use, tense. I was at a sale barn 00:03:22.539 --> 00:03:24.680 last week just watching. You know that feeling 00:03:24.680 --> 00:03:26.680 when the auction year starts and usually there's 00:03:26.680 --> 00:03:28.759 a bit of a lull, people are feeling it out. Yeah, 00:03:28.780 --> 00:03:30.639 the warm -up. There's no warm -up right now. 00:03:31.159 --> 00:03:34.060 If a decent springing heifer walks into the ring, 00:03:34.259 --> 00:03:37.340 the bidding doesn't start low. It starts at $3 00:03:37.340 --> 00:03:40.939 ,000 and it goes up. We are seeing replacement 00:03:40.939 --> 00:03:43.699 heifers trading between $3 ,000 and $4 ,000 consistently. 00:03:44.379 --> 00:03:47.400 I've seen some genetic lots pushing way, way 00:03:47.400 --> 00:03:50.259 past that. It's the beef on dairy hangover. That's 00:03:50.259 --> 00:03:53.099 what I'm calling it. We spent five years aggressively 00:03:53.099 --> 00:03:55.500 breeding everything to beef because the premiums 00:03:55.500 --> 00:03:57.039 were so good. And they were good, don't get me 00:03:57.039 --> 00:03:59.800 wrong. A day -old crossbred calf was bringing 00:03:59.800 --> 00:04:04.039 $800, $1 ,000. Compared to $100 for a Holstein 00:04:04.039 --> 00:04:07.419 bull calf a few years ago, it was a no -brainer. 00:04:07.789 --> 00:04:11.030 Of course it was. Mike North over at Ever .ag 00:04:11.030 --> 00:04:13.409 called it a fantastic opportunity to make money 00:04:13.409 --> 00:04:15.849 without feeding a cat for 18 months. And he was 00:04:15.849 --> 00:04:18.829 right. But we squeezed the pipeline. We just, 00:04:18.949 --> 00:04:21.089 we stopped making our own replacements. And the 00:04:21.089 --> 00:04:24.490 numbers back that up. The CoBank outlook from 00:04:24.490 --> 00:04:28.149 late 2025 put Heifer inventories at 20 -year 00:04:28.149 --> 00:04:31.790 lows. We are talking late 1970s numbers. So you're 00:04:31.790 --> 00:04:34.430 in a situation where the asset is scarce. And 00:04:34.430 --> 00:04:36.990 it's expensive. An incredibly expensive asset. 00:04:37.149 --> 00:04:39.589 And this is where our topic comes in. Imagine 00:04:39.589 --> 00:04:42.769 buying a car for double the sticker price, driving 00:04:42.769 --> 00:04:45.250 it off the lot, and realizing the tires are flat 00:04:45.250 --> 00:04:47.589 and the engine is overheating. That's the fresh 00:04:47.589 --> 00:04:49.949 heifer with severe edema. Exactly. You've paid 00:04:49.949 --> 00:04:52.370 a huge premium to get her there. All your feed 00:04:52.370 --> 00:04:54.750 costs, raising costs, or just the flat -out purchase 00:04:54.750 --> 00:04:57.449 price. And the moment she hits the milking string, 00:04:57.589 --> 00:05:00.129 she physically fails. She's broken. But here's 00:05:00.129 --> 00:05:01.970 the friction point. And I want you to be honest. 00:05:02.170 --> 00:05:05.199 If I'm a farmer, And I say, yeah, my heifers 00:05:05.199 --> 00:05:06.839 have some swelling, but they work out of it. 00:05:06.899 --> 00:05:09.420 What are you thinking? I'm thinking, so does 00:05:09.420 --> 00:05:12.060 everyone else's. And that's the trap, isn't it? 00:05:12.120 --> 00:05:15.199 It's the everyone knows myth. We assume that 00:05:15.199 --> 00:05:17.779 because 90 % of our neighbors have heifers with 00:05:17.779 --> 00:05:20.660 rock -hard udders, it must be normal biology. 00:05:20.920 --> 00:05:23.560 It's just what heifers do. Common does not mean 00:05:23.560 --> 00:05:25.839 normal. And it certainly doesn't mean it's profitable. 00:05:26.300 --> 00:05:28.019 The data we're going to walk through suggests 00:05:28.019 --> 00:05:30.660 that this normal swelling is actually a distinct 00:05:30.660 --> 00:05:35.000 disease process. A disease. I heard Donna Borderski, 00:05:35.120 --> 00:05:37.139 a veterinarian from Michigan, say that. She said 00:05:37.139 --> 00:05:39.540 it's a disease, not just a cosmetic swelling. 00:05:39.759 --> 00:05:42.259 And that kind of flips the script. It does. And 00:05:42.259 --> 00:05:45.819 in 2026, with heifer prices where they are, you 00:05:45.819 --> 00:05:48.000 literally cannot afford to treat it as a nuisance. 00:05:48.160 --> 00:05:51.779 It's a tax. A tax you pay on every single animal 00:05:51.779 --> 00:05:54.639 that freshens. So let's get into our first segment, 00:05:54.800 --> 00:05:57.399 problem identification. Because I think we need 00:05:57.399 --> 00:05:59.519 to strip away the desensitization. We've all 00:05:59.519 --> 00:06:02.060 seen it so much. We've stopped seeing it. Paint 00:06:02.060 --> 00:06:03.860 the picture for me. You're in the parlor. Our 00:06:03.860 --> 00:06:05.879 first lactation heifer comes in. What are we 00:06:05.879 --> 00:06:09.360 looking at? Okay. Visualize heifer 402. She's 00:06:09.360 --> 00:06:12.060 brand new. Maybe three days in milk. She's got 00:06:12.060 --> 00:06:13.879 the frame. She looks the part from the neck up. 00:06:14.240 --> 00:06:16.079 But you look at the udder and it doesn't look 00:06:16.079 --> 00:06:19.939 like skin. It looks like a polished apple. It's 00:06:19.939 --> 00:06:24.220 shiny. Tight. Incredibly tight. And the architecture 00:06:24.220 --> 00:06:26.540 is gone. You know the median suspensory ligament? 00:06:26.639 --> 00:06:29.720 That nice deep cleft that splits the utter halves? 00:06:29.980 --> 00:06:32.500 Yeah, the center support. It's gone. The bottom 00:06:32.500 --> 00:06:35.360 of the utter is just a flat, hard plate of tissue. 00:06:35.560 --> 00:06:37.860 The teats aren't hanging down. They're strutting 00:06:37.860 --> 00:06:40.779 out sideways at 45 degree angles. They look like 00:06:40.779 --> 00:06:42.279 they're trying to escape. And what's her behavior 00:06:42.279 --> 00:06:45.240 like? She's dancing. She's nervous. You try to 00:06:45.240 --> 00:06:47.399 wipe her. She kicks. You try to attach the unit. 00:06:47.439 --> 00:06:50.399 She kicks it off. If it's a robot, the arm tries 00:06:50.399 --> 00:06:52.920 three times, fails, and calls you at two in the 00:06:52.920 --> 00:06:54.779 morning. Right. And we usually get mad at the 00:06:54.779 --> 00:06:57.839 heifer. We say, she's wild, or she's just a jumpy 00:06:57.839 --> 00:07:00.459 heifer. But she's not wild. She's in agony. That 00:07:00.459 --> 00:07:02.899 pressure is real pain. That pressure is pain. 00:07:03.680 --> 00:07:07.480 And yet the industry stats on this are, they're 00:07:07.480 --> 00:07:10.639 shocking. I want to pull up a study from 2018. 00:07:10.819 --> 00:07:12.810 It was Morrison and colleagues. published in 00:07:12.810 --> 00:07:14.670 the Journal of Dairy Science. We looked at the 00:07:14.670 --> 00:07:16.870 prevalence of this. What percentage of first 00:07:16.870 --> 00:07:18.990 lactation heifers do you think suffer from utter 00:07:18.990 --> 00:07:22.129 edema? Ugh, if I go by my gut, I'd say half. 00:07:22.389 --> 00:07:25.930 Maybe 60 % on a bad dairy seems high, but... 00:07:25.930 --> 00:07:31.189 Let's try 86%. 80! Oh, wait, what? 86 %! No, 00:07:31.370 --> 00:07:34.819 you're kidding! 9 out of 10 first calf heifers. 00:07:34.959 --> 00:07:37.139 That, okay, that explains why we think it's normal. 00:07:37.240 --> 00:07:39.459 If 86 % of the population has a condition, you 00:07:39.459 --> 00:07:41.199 stop calling it a condition. You just call it 00:07:41.199 --> 00:07:43.819 being a heifer. That's the new baseline. Exactly. 00:07:44.180 --> 00:07:46.660 But here's the kicker. Compare that to second 00:07:46.660 --> 00:07:49.699 lactation cows. The same study found only 56 00:07:49.699 --> 00:07:53.300 % of them had it. Still high, but a massive 30 00:07:53.300 --> 00:07:55.819 -point drop -off. So something specific is happening 00:07:55.819 --> 00:07:57.860 to these rookies. Something is hitting them harder. 00:07:58.079 --> 00:08:00.240 It's the mate and voyage problem. That's what 00:08:00.240 --> 00:08:02.620 it is. That's a good way to put it. Let's get 00:08:02.620 --> 00:08:04.360 technical for a second because we need to understand 00:08:04.360 --> 00:08:06.860 the why if we're ever going to fix it. Why does 00:08:06.860 --> 00:08:10.019 a heifer blow up like a balloon while an older 00:08:10.019 --> 00:08:13.100 cow generally handles the transition better? 00:08:13.240 --> 00:08:15.879 It all comes down to plumbing. The vascular system, 00:08:16.060 --> 00:08:18.560 the veins, and the lymph ducts in a heifer is 00:08:18.560 --> 00:08:21.279 immature. It's brand new. It has never been under 00:08:21.279 --> 00:08:24.740 this kind of load before. Then suddenly, she 00:08:24.740 --> 00:08:27.560 calves. You have this massive hormonal signal 00:08:27.560 --> 00:08:30.500 telling the body, send blood to the udder. Make 00:08:30.500 --> 00:08:33.580 milk. Now. And we've bred them to do that. The 00:08:33.580 --> 00:08:36.200 genomic drive for production is so intense, we're 00:08:36.200 --> 00:08:38.320 asking for 100 pounds of milk out of the gate. 00:08:38.440 --> 00:08:40.620 Right, so you have a fire hose of blood rushing 00:08:40.620 --> 00:08:43.759 into the udder to support 80, 90, 100 pounds 00:08:43.759 --> 00:08:46.740 of milk. But the drain pipes, the veins taking 00:08:46.740 --> 00:08:48.980 blood away, and the lymph system removing excess 00:08:48.980 --> 00:08:51.980 fluid? They're the size of garden hoses. They 00:08:51.980 --> 00:08:53.879 haven't had a chance to stretch mature yet. So 00:08:53.879 --> 00:08:56.700 you get a traffic jam. A massive biological traffic 00:08:56.700 --> 00:09:00.019 jam. The hydrostatic pressure builds up inside 00:09:00.019 --> 00:09:03.580 the tiny capillaries until the fluid, the plasma, 00:09:03.799 --> 00:09:06.519 literally gets pushed through the walls of the 00:09:06.519 --> 00:09:08.799 veins and leaks into the surrounding tissue. 00:09:09.309 --> 00:09:11.649 And that's the edema. That is the edema. It's 00:09:11.649 --> 00:09:13.990 fluid trapped between the cells because the drainage 00:09:13.990 --> 00:09:16.649 system is completely overwhelmed. And here's 00:09:16.649 --> 00:09:18.649 the part that really clicked for me when I was 00:09:18.649 --> 00:09:21.470 reading the source material. We tend to think 00:09:21.470 --> 00:09:24.850 of this fluid as harmless water. You know, it'll 00:09:24.850 --> 00:09:27.649 go away, but it's not just sitting there. It's 00:09:27.649 --> 00:09:30.090 actively causing damage while it sits there. 00:09:30.230 --> 00:09:32.789 Think about a rubber band. If you stretch a rubber 00:09:32.789 --> 00:09:34.990 band to its absolute limit and you just hold 00:09:34.990 --> 00:09:37.009 it there for three wins, what happens when you 00:09:37.009 --> 00:09:39.919 finally let go? It's loose. It's warped. It never 00:09:39.919 --> 00:09:42.519 snaps back the same way. It's shot. That is the 00:09:42.519 --> 00:09:44.940 perfect analogy for what's happening to the udder 00:09:44.940 --> 00:09:48.240 support system. Lingering, severe swelling stretches 00:09:48.240 --> 00:09:51.179 the suspensory ligaments. This is the breakdown 00:09:51.179 --> 00:09:53.360 of the udder architecture. So a heifer with severe 00:09:53.360 --> 00:09:55.960 edema today is your pendulous, low -uddered cow 00:09:55.960 --> 00:09:59.120 in three years. You are predisposing that animal 00:09:59.120 --> 00:10:01.980 to a pendulous udder later in life. You are literally 00:10:01.980 --> 00:10:04.460 shortening her productive longevity before she 00:10:04.460 --> 00:10:07.429 even finishes her first month of milk. It's crazy. 00:10:07.750 --> 00:10:09.830 You're shortening her career before she even 00:10:09.830 --> 00:10:13.389 peaks. And we see the consequences in the calling 00:10:13.389 --> 00:10:17.450 data years later. Bad udder, hard to milk. But 00:10:17.450 --> 00:10:19.870 we rarely trace it back to that very first transition. 00:10:20.070 --> 00:10:21.929 And that's just the internal damage. We haven't 00:10:21.929 --> 00:10:23.529 even talked about the external stuff. When that 00:10:23.529 --> 00:10:26.309 skin is swollen tight and her leg rubs against 00:10:26.309 --> 00:10:28.909 the udder every time she walks. Friction. Constant 00:10:28.909 --> 00:10:31.970 friction, heat, and moisture. The cleft, that 00:10:31.970 --> 00:10:34.149 little area between the thigh and the udder, 00:10:34.169 --> 00:10:37.409 becomes a swamp. It just rots. You get utter 00:10:37.409 --> 00:10:39.830 cleft dermatitis. Oh, it smells terrible. It's 00:10:39.830 --> 00:10:42.210 awful. It's raw. So now not only is the internal 00:10:42.210 --> 00:10:44.950 pressure hurting her, but she has what is essentially 00:10:44.950 --> 00:10:47.929 an open sore rubbing against her leg every single 00:10:47.929 --> 00:10:50.350 time she takes a step. And we wonder why she 00:10:50.350 --> 00:10:52.389 won't let down her milk. It's a torture chamber. 00:10:52.570 --> 00:10:54.870 We've basically created a torture chamber for 00:10:54.870 --> 00:10:57.409 our most valuable, most genetically superior 00:10:57.409 --> 00:11:00.070 animals right when they enter the herd. So to 00:11:00.070 --> 00:11:05.720 recap, this is ubiquitous. 86 % of heifers. It 00:11:05.720 --> 00:11:08.720 is painful. It causes permanent structural damage. 00:11:09.240 --> 00:11:12.320 And it creates a cascade of secondary problems 00:11:12.320 --> 00:11:15.039 like dermatitis. Which brings us right back to 00:11:15.039 --> 00:11:18.559 the money. Because in 2026, with a $4 ,000 asset 00:11:18.559 --> 00:11:21.500 on the line, we can't afford to damage the goods 00:11:21.500 --> 00:11:24.419 in the first week. Let's move to segment two, 00:11:24.559 --> 00:11:27.200 the industry reality check. We mentioned the 00:11:27.200 --> 00:11:28.960 heifer shortage, but I want to drill down on 00:11:28.960 --> 00:11:30.940 something you touched on earlier, the opportunity 00:11:30.940 --> 00:11:33.419 cost. This is something farmers are, let's be 00:11:33.419 --> 00:11:35.919 honest, notoriously bad at calculating. Oh, we're 00:11:35.919 --> 00:11:37.799 great at calculating the check we write. We see 00:11:37.799 --> 00:11:39.519 that every month. We're terrible at calculating 00:11:39.519 --> 00:11:41.539 the check we didn't get, the invisible income. 00:11:41.840 --> 00:11:43.399 That's the perfect way to frame it. The lost 00:11:43.399 --> 00:11:46.559 sale. In a normal market, say back in 2018 or 00:11:46.559 --> 00:11:49.059 2019, if you had a few extra heifers, maybe you 00:11:49.059 --> 00:11:51.100 sold them, maybe you didn't. It wasn't a life 00:11:51.100 --> 00:11:54.200 -changing event. You got $1 ,200. Maybe $1 ,500 00:11:54.200 --> 00:11:56.220 if she was nice. It paid for some feed, it was 00:11:56.220 --> 00:11:58.179 nice, but it wasn't the core of your business. 00:11:58.559 --> 00:12:01.690 But today... Right now, if you have a healthy 00:12:01.690 --> 00:12:05.250 transition perfect heifer program and you have, 00:12:05.269 --> 00:12:09.690 say, a 10 % surplus rate, you are sitting on 00:12:09.690 --> 00:12:12.269 a goldmine. A legitimate goldmine. You can sell 00:12:12.269 --> 00:12:14.870 those excess heifers for $3 ,000, $3 ,500, $4 00:12:14.870 --> 00:12:18.389 ,000 a pop. That is pure profit. That is cash 00:12:18.389 --> 00:12:20.789 flow that pays off the tractor note. That's money 00:12:20.789 --> 00:12:23.460 that can... renovate the parlor or pay for a 00:12:23.460 --> 00:12:26.039 family vacation, it's real money. But if you 00:12:26.039 --> 00:12:27.820 have an edema problem. You don't have a surplus. 00:12:27.940 --> 00:12:29.379 You're just trying to keep your stalls full. 00:12:29.500 --> 00:12:31.179 You're culling your mistakes and hoping you have 00:12:31.179 --> 00:12:33.720 enough left over to maintain herd size. Exactly. 00:12:33.720 --> 00:12:36.000 Let's walk through the math on that. If that 00:12:36.000 --> 00:12:39.000 heifer with severe edema washes out, she gets 00:12:39.000 --> 00:12:41.179 a nasty case of mastitis, she doesn't breed back, 00:12:41.299 --> 00:12:43.820 whatever, you have to replace her. So you go 00:12:43.820 --> 00:12:46.980 to the sale and spend $4 ,000 to buy a replacement. 00:12:47.259 --> 00:12:51.029 Check written. I feel that pain. Indeed. You 00:12:51.029 --> 00:12:53.090 lost the $4 ,000 you would have made if you had 00:12:53.090 --> 00:12:55.529 kept her healthy and been able to sell her as 00:12:55.529 --> 00:12:58.250 surplus into this hot market. It's a double whammy. 00:12:58.289 --> 00:13:02.590 It's an $8 ,000 swing on one single animal. That 00:13:02.590 --> 00:13:04.909 is the hypertax, and it's hiding in plain sight 00:13:04.909 --> 00:13:07.789 in your barn right now. It is. And I want to 00:13:07.789 --> 00:13:09.649 highlight something from that CoBank outlook 00:13:09.649 --> 00:13:12.789 again. They are saying recovery of the national 00:13:12.789 --> 00:13:16.490 heifer inventory isn't expected until 2027 at 00:13:16.490 --> 00:13:19.179 the earliest. So we are in this tunnel for at 00:13:19.179 --> 00:13:21.159 least another year and a half, maybe longer. 00:13:21.379 --> 00:13:23.460 Correct. This isn't a tough quarter that you 00:13:23.460 --> 00:13:25.820 could just ride out. This is the market reality 00:13:25.820 --> 00:13:28.179 for the foreseeable future, which is leading 00:13:28.179 --> 00:13:31.779 to another problem. Farmers are hoarding cows. 00:13:32.039 --> 00:13:34.480 Oh, I see it everywhere. Keeping animals they 00:13:34.480 --> 00:13:36.679 would have culled years ago, just keep the stalls 00:13:36.679 --> 00:13:38.659 full. Talk about that. What does that look like? 00:13:38.779 --> 00:13:41.299 It looks like a cow with a 400 ,000 somatic cell 00:13:41.299 --> 00:13:44.379 count. Two years ago, she's gone. Today, keep 00:13:44.379 --> 00:13:47.210 her. It looks like a cow that's a chronic three 00:13:47.210 --> 00:13:50.789 -quarter milker. Gone. Today. Keep her. Breeding 00:13:50.789 --> 00:13:52.649 trouble. Let's give her another shot and another 00:13:52.649 --> 00:13:55.350 one after that. The slow milker who holds up 00:13:55.350 --> 00:13:58.570 the whole parlor. Keep her. Why? Because you 00:13:58.570 --> 00:14:00.330 have nothing to put in her stall if she leaves. 00:14:00.549 --> 00:14:03.299 The replacement pipeline is dry. But that destroys 00:14:03.299 --> 00:14:06.580 efficiency, doesn't it? You are actively degrading 00:14:06.580 --> 00:14:09.580 the overall performance of your entire herd just 00:14:09.580 --> 00:14:11.820 to maintain headcount. It's a desperate move. 00:14:11.919 --> 00:14:14.919 It's a Band -Aid on a gaping wound. And it makes 00:14:14.919 --> 00:14:17.139 the edema problem even worse because now you 00:14:17.139 --> 00:14:19.860 have these old problem cows taking up your time 00:14:19.860 --> 00:14:22.440 and resources while your fresh heifers, your 00:14:22.440 --> 00:14:25.580 best genetics, your future are failing because 00:14:25.580 --> 00:14:28.019 of a preventable swelling issue. So let's get 00:14:28.019 --> 00:14:30.259 into the specifics of that cost. We've talked. 00:14:30.590 --> 00:14:33.370 High level. Let's do segment three. Follow the 00:14:33.370 --> 00:14:35.710 money. What does the bullvine modeling say this 00:14:35.710 --> 00:14:38.370 actually costs day to day? Because I know the 00:14:38.370 --> 00:14:40.110 skeptics are listening right now. I know exactly 00:14:40.110 --> 00:14:41.450 what they're thinking. They're driving in the 00:14:41.450 --> 00:14:43.669 tractor thinking, OK, an $8 ,000 swing. Sure, 00:14:43.789 --> 00:14:47.070 if she dies. But most of them don't die. Realistically, 00:14:47.190 --> 00:14:49.669 how much milk am I actually losing? Is it really 00:14:49.669 --> 00:14:53.090 worth overhauling my feeding program for? That's 00:14:53.090 --> 00:14:54.509 the question. So let's start with the direct 00:14:54.509 --> 00:14:57.570 milk loss. The immediate stuff. The modeling 00:14:57.570 --> 00:15:00.529 shows, on average, approximately 316 pounds of 00:15:00.529 --> 00:15:02.830 milk lost per lactation for every affected heifer. 00:15:02.929 --> 00:15:06.070 Okay, let me do some quick napkin math here. 00:15:07.889 --> 00:15:13.830 316 pounds. At roughly, what, 20 bucks per hundredweight 00:15:13.830 --> 00:15:17.409 on average? Let's use $20, yeah. That's $63 .20. 00:15:17.809 --> 00:15:21.509 About 63 bucks per heifer. You know, I'm going 00:15:21.509 --> 00:15:25.009 to be honest. $63, that doesn't sound like a 00:15:25.009 --> 00:15:29.429 crisis. I probably spill $63 worth of teat dip 00:15:29.429 --> 00:15:31.789 in the milk house every month. If that's all 00:15:31.789 --> 00:15:34.629 it is, I'm not changing my whole feeding program. 00:15:34.809 --> 00:15:37.070 I'm not building a new commodity bin for $60. 00:15:37.230 --> 00:15:39.830 And that is exactly the trap. That is why nobody 00:15:39.830 --> 00:15:42.070 fixes this problem. They look at that direct 00:15:42.070 --> 00:15:44.610 milk loss number and they say, eh, $60, no big 00:15:44.610 --> 00:15:46.919 deal. Right. But the milk loss is just the tip 00:15:46.919 --> 00:15:48.960 of the iceberg. It's the cover charge to get 00:15:48.960 --> 00:15:51.019 into the club. Right. It's the opening act for 00:15:51.019 --> 00:15:53.679 the real disaster. The real killers are the downstream 00:15:53.679 --> 00:15:56.159 effects. The hidden costs. The stuff that doesn't 00:15:56.159 --> 00:15:58.220 show up on the milk check. Let's start with mastitis. 00:15:58.580 --> 00:16:01.460 The data shows that cows with significant edema 00:16:01.460 --> 00:16:03.940 are two and a half times more likely to get clinical 00:16:03.940 --> 00:16:07.500 mastitis in the first 30 days. 2 .5 times. That 00:16:07.500 --> 00:16:09.960 makes perfect sense. We talked about the dermatitis, 00:16:10.100 --> 00:16:12.659 the difficulty milking her out completely because 00:16:12.659 --> 00:16:15.409 the teats are so tight. If you can't get the 00:16:15.409 --> 00:16:18.210 milk out, bacteria grows. It's a perfect storm. 00:16:18.529 --> 00:16:22.149 So instead of a normal 2 % mastitis rate in your 00:16:22.149 --> 00:16:25.909 fresh heifers, you're looking at 5%, maybe higher. 00:16:26.149 --> 00:16:28.669 What does a single case of clinical mastitis 00:16:28.669 --> 00:16:32.509 cost you, bottom line? By the time you buy the 00:16:32.509 --> 00:16:34.850 drugs, dump the milk for the withdrawal period, 00:16:35.070 --> 00:16:37.309 pay for the extra labor to treat her. A conservative 00:16:37.309 --> 00:16:40.809 number is $350. If she becomes a chronic case 00:16:40.809 --> 00:16:43.419 or loses a quarter, could easily be a thousand 00:16:43.419 --> 00:16:45.929 bucks and that's if she even cures okay So there's 00:16:45.929 --> 00:16:48.909 mastitis. Now add metabolic issues. Edema is 00:16:48.909 --> 00:16:51.629 linked to higher BHPA levels in the blood. Ketones. 00:16:51.730 --> 00:16:54.389 Ketones, which means a higher risk of subclinical 00:16:54.389 --> 00:16:56.990 ketosis in that critical second week post calving. 00:16:57.169 --> 00:16:59.009 Now she's not eating right. Now she's losing 00:16:59.009 --> 00:17:00.370 too much weight. And now she's not breathing 00:17:00.370 --> 00:17:02.570 back in 90 days because her body spent the first 00:17:02.570 --> 00:17:04.950 month sick and trying to recover. You've just 00:17:04.950 --> 00:17:07.069 torpedoed her reproductive cycle. The cost just 00:17:07.069 --> 00:17:09.349 keeps stacking up. Exactly. And then there's 00:17:09.349 --> 00:17:11.890 the labor cost. You mentioned the slow outs earlier. 00:17:12.089 --> 00:17:13.670 Oh, this is the one that drives your milkers 00:17:13.670 --> 00:17:16.789 crazy. You have a parlor that is designed to 00:17:16.789 --> 00:17:19.430 turn over every seven minutes. Then you have 00:17:19.430 --> 00:17:22.630 heifer number 402 with a rock -hard udder. She 00:17:22.630 --> 00:17:24.890 takes 15 minutes to milk out because the flow 00:17:24.890 --> 00:17:27.509 is restricted by all that swelling. The whole 00:17:27.509 --> 00:17:29.630 side of the parlor waits on her. Your efficiency 00:17:29.630 --> 00:17:32.329 goes right out the window. Or the robot calls 00:17:32.329 --> 00:17:33.869 you at three in the morning because it failed 00:17:33.869 --> 00:17:36.039 attachment five times in a row. What is your 00:17:36.039 --> 00:17:37.940 time worth? What is your milker's frustration 00:17:37.940 --> 00:17:41.099 worth? High frustration leads to bad handling, 00:17:41.299 --> 00:17:43.900 which leads to more stress on the cows, which 00:17:43.900 --> 00:17:46.720 leads to less milk. It's a vicious cycle. So 00:17:46.720 --> 00:17:49.380 let's tally the total bill. We ran the bullvine 00:17:49.380 --> 00:17:52.920 modeling on the theoretical 100 cow herd. Let's 00:17:52.920 --> 00:17:55.779 say you freshen 40 heifers a year. Yep, pretty 00:17:55.779 --> 00:17:57.940 standard turnover. If you have the industry average 00:17:57.940 --> 00:18:01.900 86 % edema rate, that's... 34 affected animals 00:18:01.900 --> 00:18:04.440 out of your 40 new heifers. Okay. 34 heifers 00:18:04.440 --> 00:18:07.079 with some level of swelling. On the absolute 00:18:07.079 --> 00:18:11.440 most conservative low end. Minimal mastitis, 00:18:11.480 --> 00:18:14.000 just the milk loss and some minor issues. You 00:18:14.000 --> 00:18:18.900 are losing about $3 ,500 a year. $3 ,500. Okay. 00:18:18.960 --> 00:18:20.900 That gets my attention more than $60. But the 00:18:20.900 --> 00:18:23.940 realistic loss. When you factor in the inevitable 00:18:23.940 --> 00:18:26.839 mastitis treatments, the extra labor, the discarded 00:18:26.839 --> 00:18:29.740 milk, and crucially, one or two early culls because 00:18:29.740 --> 00:18:32.279 a heifer just completely crashes and burns, is 00:18:32.279 --> 00:18:36.119 between $8 ,000 and $16 ,000 per year. For a 00:18:36.119 --> 00:18:38.720 100 -cow herd. For a 100 -cow herd. So if you 00:18:38.720 --> 00:18:40.660 are milking 1 ,000 cows, you can add a zero. 00:18:40.960 --> 00:18:44.599 That's $80 ,000 to $160 ,000 a year walking out 00:18:44.599 --> 00:18:47.160 your door because of a little swelling. And the 00:18:47.160 --> 00:18:48.740 thing that really sticks out to me in that math 00:18:48.740 --> 00:18:52.309 is the cull. Why that specifically? Because like 00:18:52.309 --> 00:18:53.809 we said at the beginning, the replacement cost 00:18:53.809 --> 00:18:57.930 is $4 ,000. If just one of those 34 heifers crashes 00:18:57.930 --> 00:19:00.789 and burns because of edema complications, she 00:19:00.789 --> 00:19:03.769 gets a nasty menstitis, doesn't breed back, and 00:19:03.769 --> 00:19:06.529 leaves the herd in her first lactation. That 00:19:06.529 --> 00:19:09.210 one animal wipes out the profit of the next 10 00:19:09.210 --> 00:19:11.789 healthy heifers combined. It's catastrophic. 00:19:12.130 --> 00:19:14.609 In a high -cost replacement environment, the 00:19:14.609 --> 00:19:16.970 penalty for culling a young animal is absolutely 00:19:16.970 --> 00:19:19.329 catastrophic. You cannot afford to lose her. 00:19:19.589 --> 00:19:21.630 Okay, you've scared us. You've made the case. 00:19:21.710 --> 00:19:24.789 We understand the cost. $16 ,000 is on the line. 00:19:25.470 --> 00:19:28.230 Now, what do we do about it? Let's move to segment 00:19:28.230 --> 00:19:31.029 four, case studies and examples. You promised 00:19:31.029 --> 00:19:34.049 me three practical levers. I did. And these are 00:19:34.049 --> 00:19:35.910 things you can actually do. We aren't reinventing 00:19:35.910 --> 00:19:38.710 the wheel here. Lever number one is body condition 00:19:38.710 --> 00:19:41.430 score, BCS. This is a classic. We've known about 00:19:41.430 --> 00:19:43.549 this for years, but man, we still screw it up 00:19:43.549 --> 00:19:46.829 all the time. The mechanism is just so simple. 00:19:47.730 --> 00:19:50.029 Excess fat, particularly around the udder and 00:19:50.029 --> 00:19:53.329 brisket, increases the tissue pressure. It physically 00:19:53.329 --> 00:19:55.390 traps the fluid. It's like wearing a belt that 00:19:55.390 --> 00:19:57.650 is two sizes too small and then trying to eat 00:19:57.650 --> 00:19:59.390 a big holiday meal. There's nowhere for anything 00:19:59.390 --> 00:20:01.470 to go. So what's the target? Where do we want 00:20:01.470 --> 00:20:04.009 them? Pre -calving. And at the moment of calving, 00:20:04.069 --> 00:20:07.269 you want them at a 3 .25 to a 3 .5. That's the 00:20:07.269 --> 00:20:09.390 sweet spot. And what do you actually see out 00:20:09.390 --> 00:20:14.190 in the field? I see 3 .75s. I see 4 .0s. I see 00:20:14.190 --> 00:20:16.349 roly -poly heifers that look like they're ready 00:20:16.349 --> 00:20:19.109 for the show ring, not the milking parlor. And 00:20:19.109 --> 00:20:22.009 that is a pre -bought edema risk. If she's a 00:20:22.009 --> 00:20:24.950 4 .0 at calving, you have already signed the 00:20:24.950 --> 00:20:27.150 check for the edema damage. You can't fix that 00:20:27.150 --> 00:20:29.250 with a pill on day one. The damage is done. No. 00:20:29.549 --> 00:20:31.470 And I know you're going to say, this isn't a 00:20:31.470 --> 00:20:34.490 quick fix. No, it's not. If you've got fat heifers 00:20:34.490 --> 00:20:36.690 in your close -up pen today, they are going to 00:20:36.690 --> 00:20:38.410 be fat heifers when they calve in two weeks. 00:20:38.569 --> 00:20:40.750 This is a breeding and growth management issue. 00:20:40.829 --> 00:20:42.630 This goes all the way back to how you fed them 00:20:42.630 --> 00:20:45.630 at six months, at 12 months. This is a turn -the 00:20:45.630 --> 00:20:47.910 -Titanic kind of lever. You have to start now 00:20:47.910 --> 00:20:50.869 to see results in a year. Agreed. But you have 00:20:50.869 --> 00:20:52.890 to start. It means looking at your heifer rations, 00:20:53.049 --> 00:20:55.849 maybe adjusting your age at first calving, but 00:20:55.849 --> 00:20:58.069 you have to stop giving them fat. Okay. Lever 00:20:58.069 --> 00:21:01.609 one is BCS. A long -term foundational fix. What's 00:21:01.609 --> 00:21:04.329 lever two? Lever two is the big one. This is 00:21:04.329 --> 00:21:06.069 the one that can make a difference almost overnight. 00:21:06.589 --> 00:21:10.269 It's diet. Specifically the pre -fresh or close 00:21:10.269 --> 00:21:13.630 -up diet. Yes. And the most common mistake is 00:21:13.630 --> 00:21:17.569 feeding heifers the exact same cow pre -fresh 00:21:17.569 --> 00:21:19.890 diet that the mature cows get. Which happens 00:21:19.890 --> 00:21:23.369 on, what, 80 % of farms? Maybe more? Easily. 00:21:23.710 --> 00:21:25.769 And logistically, I get why it happens. You have 00:21:25.769 --> 00:21:28.509 one pre -fresh pen. You put the springing heifers 00:21:28.509 --> 00:21:30.549 and the dry cows in there together. You feed 00:21:30.549 --> 00:21:33.369 them all the same TMR. It's simple. So why is 00:21:33.369 --> 00:21:37.210 that so bad? Because mature cows need a deep 00:21:37.210 --> 00:21:40.589 negative DCAT diet. They need those anionic salts 00:21:40.589 --> 00:21:43.089 to help prevent milk fever. Their bodies need 00:21:43.089 --> 00:21:45.450 to be primed to mobilize a huge amount of calcium 00:21:45.450 --> 00:21:47.920 from their bones. Right. Heifers do not need 00:21:47.920 --> 00:21:50.440 that same intensity. They very rarely get clinical 00:21:50.440 --> 00:21:52.740 milk fever. Their calcium metabolism is much 00:21:52.740 --> 00:21:54.680 more robust. But when we feed them that high 00:21:54.680 --> 00:21:57.059 -salt, anionic cow diet anyway, what happens? 00:21:57.240 --> 00:21:59.180 The high salt and potassium loads act like a 00:21:59.180 --> 00:22:01.480 sponge. It makes them retain water. It directly 00:22:01.480 --> 00:22:04.559 drives the formation of edema. Cora Okima from 00:22:04.559 --> 00:22:06.619 MSU Extension has been shouting this from the 00:22:06.619 --> 00:22:09.339 rooftops for years. Heifers should not receive 00:22:09.339 --> 00:22:12.240 the same strong DCAT ration as mature cows. Okay, 00:22:12.299 --> 00:22:15.039 so the fix is obvious then. A different diet 00:22:15.039 --> 00:22:18.160 for heifers. Lower sodium, lower potassium, and 00:22:18.160 --> 00:22:20.460 a DCAD that's neutral to only slightly negative. 00:22:20.720 --> 00:22:24.220 Correct. But here comes the reality check. I'm 00:22:24.220 --> 00:22:27.440 a farmer. I have one mixer wagon. I have one 00:22:27.440 --> 00:22:30.519 pre -fresh pen. I am not going to mix a tiny 00:22:30.519 --> 00:22:33.140 separate 500 -pound batch of feed for my six 00:22:33.140 --> 00:22:35.740 heifers that are springing this month. It's impossible. 00:22:36.160 --> 00:22:38.799 It ruins the mixer accuracy. It takes way too 00:22:38.799 --> 00:22:41.039 much time. So what is the practical solution? 00:22:41.440 --> 00:22:44.720 I hear you. The one mixer problem is real. But 00:22:44.720 --> 00:22:46.779 there are workarounds. You can't let logistics 00:22:46.779 --> 00:22:49.740 dictate bad biology. Okay, like what? Solution 00:22:49.740 --> 00:22:51.839 A, use headlocks. If your heifers are in the 00:22:51.839 --> 00:22:54.039 same pen as the cows, lock them up at feeding 00:22:54.039 --> 00:22:56.400 time. Feed the main mix to the cows, and then 00:22:56.400 --> 00:22:58.480 come back and feed a heifer -specific top dress 00:22:58.480 --> 00:23:01.500 or a separate small mix from a cart to just the 00:23:01.500 --> 00:23:03.420 heifer section of the bunk. That takes more labor, 00:23:03.480 --> 00:23:05.859 but it's possible. What else? Solution B, the 00:23:05.859 --> 00:23:07.859 easiest thing you can do today. If you can't 00:23:07.859 --> 00:23:09.500 separate the feed, at the very least, remove 00:23:09.500 --> 00:23:11.599 the free -choice salt blocks and any loose salt 00:23:11.599 --> 00:23:14.109 top dress from the heifer pens. Don't add fuel 00:23:14.109 --> 00:23:16.509 to the fire. Okay, that's a simple one. Anyone 00:23:16.509 --> 00:23:18.549 can do that this afternoon. But here's the hard 00:23:18.549 --> 00:23:22.390 rule. If you do an audit of your herd and you 00:23:22.390 --> 00:23:24.470 find that more than 60 % of your heifers have 00:23:24.470 --> 00:23:27.609 edema and you are losing money on mastitis and 00:23:27.609 --> 00:23:31.109 calls, you have to stop making excuses about 00:23:31.109 --> 00:23:33.450 the mixer. You're saying the cost of the logistics 00:23:33.450 --> 00:23:35.829 is finally lower than the cost of the disease. 00:23:36.150 --> 00:23:38.589 That's it exactly. If you are losing $16 ,000 00:23:38.589 --> 00:23:40.450 a year, you can afford to figure out a way to 00:23:40.450 --> 00:23:43.299 mix a second load. Or put up a simple gate to 00:23:43.299 --> 00:23:46.019 make a second pen. Or buy a small pole cart to 00:23:46.019 --> 00:23:48.980 feed the heifers separately. The I can't do it 00:23:48.980 --> 00:23:51.779 excuse expires when the losses hit five figures. 00:23:52.019 --> 00:23:54.220 That's fair. If the pain of the problem is big 00:23:54.220 --> 00:23:56.000 enough, you find a way to fix the logistics. 00:23:56.839 --> 00:23:58.940 Okay, so that's lever two. What's number three? 00:23:59.019 --> 00:24:02.579 Lever three. Vitamins. And specifically, we're 00:24:02.579 --> 00:24:04.839 talking about vitamin E and selenium. This feels 00:24:04.839 --> 00:24:06.980 like the easiest one to implement, right? It's 00:24:06.980 --> 00:24:09.720 just... changing your mineral pack. It is. The 00:24:09.720 --> 00:24:12.160 mechanism here is all about dealing with oxidative 00:24:12.160 --> 00:24:15.400 stress. Calving is a hugely stressful event, 00:24:15.579 --> 00:24:19.160 and it spikes oxidative stress in the body. Inflamed 00:24:19.160 --> 00:24:22.180 tissues, like a swollen udder, need antioxidants 00:24:22.180 --> 00:24:24.579 to heal properly. And most farmers are already 00:24:24.579 --> 00:24:28.019 using a mineral pack or a premix in their TMR. 00:24:28.240 --> 00:24:31.279 But here's the question. Is it a premix designed 00:24:31.279 --> 00:24:35.609 for 2026? Or is it a formulation from 2015 that 00:24:35.609 --> 00:24:37.910 you've just been reordering out of habit? That's 00:24:37.910 --> 00:24:39.569 a good point. We tend to just say, give me the 00:24:39.569 --> 00:24:41.890 usual dry cow mineral, and we don't look at the 00:24:41.890 --> 00:24:44.650 tag for 10 years. You need to audit your premix 00:24:44.650 --> 00:24:48.029 against the NESM 2021 requirements. The science 00:24:48.029 --> 00:24:50.490 has evolved. We now know we need higher levels 00:24:50.490 --> 00:24:53.230 of vitamin E and adequate selenium to help these 00:24:53.230 --> 00:24:55.529 animals cope with transition stress. But a warning 00:24:55.529 --> 00:24:58.240 here, and this is important, you can't... vitamin 00:24:58.240 --> 00:25:01.240 shot your way out of a bad diet or over -conditioned 00:25:01.240 --> 00:25:03.200 heifers. Thank you. That is absolutely crucial. 00:25:03.420 --> 00:25:05.140 If your heifers are fat, which is lever one, 00:25:05.339 --> 00:25:07.640 and they're eating a high salt cow diet, which 00:25:07.640 --> 00:25:10.079 is lever two, then just giving them extra vitamin 00:25:10.079 --> 00:25:12.119 E is like putting a Band -Aid on a gunshot wound. 00:25:12.319 --> 00:25:14.359 It helps a little, but it will not save you. 00:25:14.539 --> 00:25:17.720 It's part of a complete system, not a magic bullet 00:25:17.720 --> 00:25:20.720 you can just buy. Exactly. So those are the three 00:25:20.720 --> 00:25:24.000 levers, body condition score, diet, and vitamins. 00:25:24.420 --> 00:25:27.059 Now let's move to our last segment. Contrary 00:25:27.059 --> 00:25:29.900 intakes and future implications. Let's talk about 00:25:29.900 --> 00:25:32.960 the return on investment. The cost of the cure. 00:25:33.180 --> 00:25:36.039 Right, because... Changing a ration or buying 00:25:36.039 --> 00:25:39.000 a better vitamin pack does cost money. It's a 00:25:39.000 --> 00:25:41.420 check you have to write. It is. So we calculated 00:25:41.420 --> 00:25:44.200 the investment. To implement these changes, tweaking 00:25:44.200 --> 00:25:46.480 the diet, maybe buying a better mineral pack 00:25:46.480 --> 00:25:49.140 with the right vitamin levels, it comes out to 00:25:49.140 --> 00:25:52.519 roughly $40 per heifer. Forty. Four zero. Forty 00:25:52.519 --> 00:25:54.599 dollars. And we are protecting an asset that 00:25:54.599 --> 00:25:57.779 is worth, on today's market, $4 ,000. It is literally 00:25:57.779 --> 00:26:00.559 1 % of the asset's value. It is the cheapest 00:26:00.559 --> 00:26:02.579 insurance policy you will ever buy in your entire 00:26:02.579 --> 00:26:04.529 life. When you put it that way, It's a complete 00:26:04.529 --> 00:26:07.490 no -brainer. But why do we still fight it? Why 00:26:07.490 --> 00:26:10.769 does the industry accept an 86 % problem rate? 00:26:10.950 --> 00:26:12.250 I think it goes back to what you said earlier 00:26:12.250 --> 00:26:15.029 about the invisible costs. Yeah. The normalcy 00:26:15.029 --> 00:26:18.289 bias, the normalcy of 86%. We accept it because 00:26:18.289 --> 00:26:20.529 the cost is invisible. We write a check for the 00:26:20.529 --> 00:26:23.289 mineral. We see that $40 leaving the bank account. 00:26:23.549 --> 00:26:25.990 We don't write a check for lost milk or lost 00:26:25.990 --> 00:26:29.269 heifer potential or future culled cow. That money 00:26:29.269 --> 00:26:33.170 just, it never appears. So we don't feel the 00:26:33.170 --> 00:26:35.599 pain. It's the difference between a cash cost 00:26:35.599 --> 00:26:38.880 and an opportunity cost. Farmers and business 00:26:38.880 --> 00:26:41.779 people in general hate cash costs. They tolerate 00:26:41.779 --> 00:26:44.539 massive opportunity costs. That is profound. 00:26:44.599 --> 00:26:47.880 And it's 100 % true. I would rather lose $100 00:26:47.880 --> 00:26:51.859 in potential profit than spend $10 in cash. It's 00:26:51.859 --> 00:26:54.220 a psychological hurdle we all have. But in this 00:26:54.220 --> 00:26:57.720 2026 -2027 market, you have to get over that 00:26:57.720 --> 00:27:00.230 hurdle. You have no choice. With heifer prices 00:27:00.230 --> 00:27:02.650 staying sky high, the farms that solve their 00:27:02.650 --> 00:27:04.630 edema problem will have a massive competitive 00:27:04.630 --> 00:27:06.650 advantage. They will be the ones selling heifers 00:27:06.650 --> 00:27:08.470 for four grand to the neighbors who didn't solve 00:27:08.470 --> 00:27:10.470 it. Exactly. You want to be the seller in this 00:27:10.470 --> 00:27:13.730 market, not the buyer. Solving edema flips you 00:27:13.730 --> 00:27:16.049 from a buyer to a seller. All right. We've covered 00:27:16.049 --> 00:27:17.809 a lot. We've done the math, the biology, and 00:27:17.809 --> 00:27:20.210 the strategy. Now let's land the plane. I want 00:27:20.210 --> 00:27:23.349 actionable insights. A farmer is driving to the 00:27:23.349 --> 00:27:25.630 feed store right now or walking into the farm 00:27:25.630 --> 00:27:28.470 office. What are the three things they absolutely 00:27:28.470 --> 00:27:31.490 need to do? OK, let's break it down by timeline. 00:27:32.150 --> 00:27:34.150 Immediate, medium term and long term. Perfect. 00:27:34.269 --> 00:27:36.630 What's first? Immediate. This week. Score the 00:27:36.630 --> 00:27:38.869 problem. Stop guessing. Stop saying, yeah, we 00:27:38.869 --> 00:27:41.089 have a little swelling. Get a simple scorecard. 00:27:41.289 --> 00:27:44.069 Go out to the fresh pen. Look at the next 30 00:27:44.069 --> 00:27:46.930 to 40 fresh heifers from one day to maybe 10 00:27:46.930 --> 00:27:50.289 days in milk and score them on a simple zero 00:27:50.289 --> 00:27:52.230 to three scale. OK, but what am I looking for? 00:27:52.309 --> 00:27:54.769 What's a zero versus a three? Zero is clean. 00:27:54.930 --> 00:27:57.380 No swelling at all. A 1 is a little bit of pitting 00:27:57.380 --> 00:27:59.079 edema. You press your thumb in and it leaves 00:27:59.079 --> 00:28:01.940 a little dent. A 2 is more severe. The udder 00:28:01.940 --> 00:28:03.900 is tight and shiny. The cleft is starting to 00:28:03.900 --> 00:28:07.220 disappear. And a 3 is the basketball. Rock hard, 00:28:07.380 --> 00:28:09.720 flat on the bottom, teats strutting sideways. 00:28:10.200 --> 00:28:12.380 Got it. And what's the benchmark? Here are your 00:28:12.380 --> 00:28:15.220 red flags. If more than 60 % of your heifers 00:28:15.220 --> 00:28:19.079 have any edema, a score of 1 or higher, you have 00:28:19.079 --> 00:28:22.220 a problem. And if more than 15 % are severe, 00:28:22.460 --> 00:28:26.640 scores of 2 or 3. You have a crisis -level issue. 00:28:26.920 --> 00:28:30.400 Okay, so first, measure it. What's next? Medium 00:28:30.400 --> 00:28:33.400 term, the next three to six months. The nutrition 00:28:33.400 --> 00:28:35.619 audit. Sit down with your nutritionist, put the 00:28:35.619 --> 00:28:37.940 feed analysis paper on the table, and ask the 00:28:37.940 --> 00:28:40.640 hard question. Are my heifers actually on a different 00:28:40.640 --> 00:28:43.180 ration, or are they just in a different pen eating 00:28:43.180 --> 00:28:45.460 the same cow feed? And look at the numbers yourself. 00:28:45.660 --> 00:28:47.680 Don't just take their word for it. Get the real 00:28:47.680 --> 00:28:50.059 sodium, potassium, and DCAD numbers for that 00:28:50.059 --> 00:28:52.680 heifer ration. If the DCAT is deep negative, 00:28:52.759 --> 00:28:55.640 like minus 100 or minus 150, you have to change 00:28:55.640 --> 00:28:57.920 it. And while you're at it, check that premix 00:28:57.920 --> 00:29:00.240 tag. Update the vitamin E and selenium levels 00:29:00.240 --> 00:29:03.299 to the NASEM 2021 standards. And finally, long 00:29:03.299 --> 00:29:06.700 -term, the 1 -2 year plan. BCS Management. This 00:29:06.700 --> 00:29:09.089 is the slow turn of the Titanic. You have to 00:29:09.089 --> 00:29:11.549 work backwards. Adjust your heifer growth rates. 00:29:11.730 --> 00:29:13.990 Maybe that means a slightly less energy -dense 00:29:13.990 --> 00:29:16.869 diet from 6 to 12 months. Maybe it means adjusting 00:29:16.869 --> 00:29:19.789 your age at first calving. The goal is to have 00:29:19.789 --> 00:29:22.710 them hit that springing pen at a condition 3 00:29:22.710 --> 00:29:26.990 .25 to 3 .5, not a fat 4 .0. It's a holistic 00:29:26.990 --> 00:29:29.750 approach. It starts with measuring, moves to 00:29:29.750 --> 00:29:32.009 feeding, and ends with long -term management. 00:29:32.210 --> 00:29:34.740 Precisely. You can't just do one and expect a 00:29:34.740 --> 00:29:36.599 miracle. Well, this has been an eye opener. I 00:29:36.599 --> 00:29:38.140 think for a lot of us, we've just been walking 00:29:38.140 --> 00:29:41.220 past those shiny swollen udders for years, not 00:29:41.220 --> 00:29:43.019 realizing they were leaking money out of the 00:29:43.019 --> 00:29:44.900 business every single day. It's time to stop 00:29:44.900 --> 00:29:48.140 paying the edema tax. It's a voluntary tax. And 00:29:48.140 --> 00:29:50.339 in this economy, you should volunteer to stop 00:29:50.339 --> 00:29:52.750 paying it. This has been another deep dive from 00:29:52.750 --> 00:29:55.750 The Bullvine Podcast. Stop letting your $4 ,000 00:29:55.750 --> 00:29:58.670 heifers wash out because of a $40 vitamin deficiency. 00:29:59.150 --> 00:30:00.970 For more straight -talking industry analysis, 00:30:01.190 --> 00:30:05.529 head to www .thebullvine .com. Subscribe wherever 00:30:05.529 --> 00:30:08.269 you get your podcasts. We're out with new episodes 00:30:08.269 --> 00:30:11.230 every day. Next time, we're looking at the shifting 00:30:11.230 --> 00:30:13.470 landscape of carbon credits and what it actually 00:30:13.470 --> 00:30:15.450 means for your bottom line. Is it real money 00:30:15.450 --> 00:30:17.670 or just hype? Thanks for listening.