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By CINDY MAHAN
Rappahannock News SUIT Writer ~ It seems that everything is being . computerized these days. “The only thing this won’t do is feed the tattle,” said Dale Welch about the Dair4 computer program available for farmers. • • Mr. Welch began using the Beef .Cattle Ration Balancer two years ago. The computer program was • written by Jack Dunford, an Extension Farm Management Agent in Virginia. The program assists farmers in determining what nutritional requirements are needed for their livestock, and saves money for the - farmer by calculating exact amounts . to be fed, so farmers won’t overfeed their animals.
Cattle farmers need to feed their animals varying amounts depending on whether the animal is going to pasture or market. The computer program will give the farmer information about what is needed for a particular animal in the way of DM (dry matter), CP (crude protein), TDN (total digestible nutrients), and many other nutrients.
The first step in the program is to enter information about a particular animal’s weight, daily weight gain desired, frame size, and sex. Amounts and types of feed are then entered, and the program computes percentages of DM, CP, TDN and other nutrients for each type of feed.
The farmer strives to have the percentages add up to 100 percent each for DM, CP and TDN. The 100 percent represents the exact amount of nutrients and feed the cattle needs to gain a certain amount daily. The farmer can experiment with different types of feeds and different amounts in order to have each column add up to 100 percent, or as close as possible to that amount. The reason for this is so the animal’s diet ' will contain the optimum amount of nutrients for him or her to gain
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