2022 March Board Book

These agricultural byproducts are also highly nutritious, part of an overall effort by California dairy farmers to make sure their cows receive a balanced diet and continue to produce the highest quality milk.

Nowadays livestock diets are carefully designed to provide the right balance of forages, grains, vitamins, and minerals. Much like with professional athletes, nutritionists are an essential part of the team. Golden State dairy farmers consult with these experts on a regular basis to create and customize diets that help cows maintain optimal health and achieve maximum performance. “Roughly 99 percent of the [California dairy] industry works with a nutrition consultant,” says Mullinax. “The nutritionists come in and formulate the diets so the cows eat a perfectly balanced, totally mixed diet of feeds. In theory, every bite that a cow takes includes a perfect percentage of everything that she needs.”

The process is more complex than it may seem at first glance.

Mullinax explains that most dairies prepare diets for different stages of a cow’s life. For example, a high-performance diet for the 300 or so days over the course of a year when cows are producing milk, a “dry cow diet” for the two months when they’re having calves, and heifer diets fed to young calves through around two years of age.

The dietary evolution also benefits California dairy’s goal of becoming more sustainable and climate neutral.