7 Aspects of the Purina Animal Research Farm

 

Brenda Meyer

About the Author:

Brenda Meyer is a Dairy Nutritionist for CP Feeds. She has been with Land O’Lakes for 15 years. Brenda grew up in Waupun, Wisconsin on her parent’s registered Holstein dairy farm and still owns and shows cattle of her own. She does nutrition work for farms of all sizes, from 20 cows to 1,200 cows, throughout the lake shore area.

Brenda is also very active in the community. She is one of the founding members and the Chairperson for the Manitowoc Culver’s Futurity, which is in its tenth year. Brenda is a member of the Manitowoc County Holstein Board and also serves as the County Junior Holstein Adviser. 

Checkerboards welcomed us everywhere! We were overwhelmed by checkerboards on just about everything we saw. Nine CP Feeds team members attended the Purina Animal Research Farm tour in Gray Summit, Missouri in late February. We took a 15 passenger van on an eight hour trip from Valders to St. Louis, Missouri. (Talk about team bonding!) The meeting was attended by sales people from all focus areas of Purina Animal Nutrition. Lifestyle, livestock and dairy specialists from across the nation came to learn about the products Purina produces and network with each other.

Purina Animal Nutrition is owned by Land O’Lakes Inc. In 2001, the feed division of Land O’Lakes decided it was important to distinguish themselves from the butter and cheese that is purchased in the grocery store and bought Purina Mills. Since then, the feed has slowly been switched from the Land O’Lakes brand to the Purina Mills brand. That is why the feed you see now is labeled with a checkerboard instead of the iconic Land O’Lakes Indian Maiden. Purina is recognized by the nine red and white squares that make up the checkerboard.

DAY 1

On our first full day there, the entire group loaded into buses and toured the newly updated Purina Research Farm. The facilities were built to showcase and describe the research being done on the farm every day and included a new conference center built to hold up to 400 people and host events just like the one we were attending. Each species had its own meeting and observation room where experts could discuss what research they were doing. These facilities are covered in the Purina brand message. Each room contains photos of the employees, information boards about the products and some of the history of Purina.

LAMU

Our first stop was the LAMU. (Large Animal Metabolization Unit) We were greeted by 75 feet of plasticized intestines on the wall, representing the length of the intestine of a 500 pound animal. They have fistulated steers and cows on the farm that they use to gather rumination information on their trials. The scientists there showed us three types of rumen bugs under a microscope and we saw how they travel and break down bacteria. The trials run in this barn measure EVERYTHING the cow consumes and EVERYTHING that is excreted.

Calf and Heifers

Part of the new renovations was a new heifer facility built to resemble the commercial facilities going up around the country. The main difference between a commercial barn and this research barn was the increased number of pens to perform multiple trials and get additional data points. Each pen had a dry erase board with the average height, weight, and age of the pen. We saw 12 month old heifers at 750 pounds and 54 inches tall!

Dairy

Upon entering the dairy barn, we were led to an overview room with views of the parlor and free stall barn. There was signage explaining many of the products and their uses. The farm consists of 300 cows. Each cow has a collar that opens only one Kalen gate. The cow is only allowed to eat out of this gate which allows the staff to measure how much feed each cow consumes. As the cows go through the parlor, their daily milk weights are measured and body weights are recorded.

Show Chow & Aqua

In this session, we learned about the many show ring Champions that have been fed Purina feed. We also learned more about the AquaMax feed that Purina offers. If I learned anything, it’s that everyone needs a pond with some fish to feed, if only to watch a three pound blue gill grow!

Swine

PEDv is a highly transferable virus that has recently affected the pork industry and because of that we were unable to tour the facilities. We hope to see it next time we visit.

Beef

The Purina team was very excited to have us tour this barn. Before the renovation, the facilities were very rugged and tours were held completely outside in the elements. The new facility has a spacious viewing room that keeps the tour groups warm and the cattle from being distracted by every tour that comes through. The beef barn also uses Kalen gates to measure concentrate and forage intakes. Purina is the first in the industry to measure forage intakes in beef cattle.

Equine

You may already be familiar with the Equine unit at the Gray Summit Research Farm. We saw the treadmill that they run the horses on to test their endurance. The equine facility is also measuring forage and concentrate intakes to better understand how the animals consume and digest feed.

DAY 2

Before we left on Wednesday, we had the opportunity to meet with other co-op dealerships who focus on dairy. We worked together as a national sales team to discuss nine key areas of your business: ColdFront & WarmFront Milk Replacer, Ampli-calf Starter, Ampli-calf Grower, HeiferSmart, Rally, Propel Energy Nugget, Propel Energy Plus, USA Lysine & MetaPro. It was interesting to see the added value that others are bringing to their customers and share what we are doing successfully.

It was important that we attended this event so that we could more fully understand the research going into all the of the Purina products we carry and see where the value added technology is developed. The farm looks like our customer’s facilities but are set up to collect millions of data points to constantly improve their products.

There will be many opportunities for us to bring customers and prospective customers to view the Purina Animal Research farm. Contact CP Feeds for more information!