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Little River, TX | RFV was developed by the Dairy Forage Station near Madison Wisconsin.
As mentioned it was developed as a simple one size fits all quality standard for alfalfa hay. It is based on ADF & NDF only. They took some magic factors and put the whole thing into a multi tiered equation and out comes RFV.
Day one 100 RFV was grinding hay. 150 RFV was dairy quality. Protein is not considered at all. In theory 150 RFV will equal the old standard 20-30-40 (>20% CP, <30% ADF, & <40% NDF) A great deal depends on the feeding philosophy of the dairy &/or the nutritionist.
Dave should appreciate the idea that Kalifornia never bought into the new system, but stayed with their own version of TDN. All the Dairies in Kalifornia like TDN because they can gain a few points of quality at the expense of the hay grower. (JUMP)
Since then they academics have decided RFV is not working as desired and have come up with RFQ (Q for quality)
When a dairy gets their hay, priced by RFV, CA's TDN, or CP, their nutritionist will test the hay all over again for how the forage will be used in the total animal ration.
A few years ago Texas had a program measuring nutrients in animal waste. From this they could determine the quality of the feed going in.
The dairy wants to be able to purchase forages with a reasonable expectation of productivity. Still the proof is the milk going into the tank at what cost for feed.
Soap Box time. The large feed lot dairies must shave input cost because of their volume a small difference makes a big total difference. I have been assured that a 100 lbs of milk will use $4 to $6 in feed cost.
A grazing dairy in the higher land cost Midwest will run in the neighborhood of $2 real feed cost/100 lbs of milk.
Still hear say in East Texas their feed bill is closer to $1 / 100 lbs of milk. The people who are grazing dairy cows also tell me their cull rate is a small percentage of the cull rate for a CAFA dairy.
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Protien vs RFV
