ABSTRACT
This chapter shows that the application of microcomputers to nutrition and feeding management of dairy cows and the microcomputer is owned by and located at the dairy. Since the 1950s, dairy farmers have used the computers of their Dairy Herd Improvement Cooperative to calculate, summarize, and store production and management data. The programmable calculators were rapidly adapted to agricultural use by extension specialists, particularly those concerned with nutrition and feed formulation. Linear programming is a mathematical technique used to maximize or minimize some function subject to constraints. As increased production makes parlor-concentrate feeding more and more inadequate, several types and systems of supplemental-concentrate feeders are used. The microcomputer-controlled-concentrate feeders offer important advantages over the simple magnet feeder and key-door access feeders, but they cannot account for nutrients consumed from forage; therefore, total nutrients are dispensed imprecisely. Microcomputers have many other applications to nutrition and feed management, including inventory control of both concentrate and forage and cropping program planning.
