Our Technical Services
At Dugdale Nutrition we offer a comprehensive suite of Technical Services, including Dairy Herd Costings, Rationing Programmes, InterHerd Analysis, Herd Companion, Grass Sampling, Calf Unit Assessment, Mineral Analysis, Forage Analysis, Body Condition Scoring, Soil Analysis, and Cow Signals. To support this, we operate our own fully equipped laboratory on site, which rigorously tests all products entering or leaving our mills — from raw materials to finished feeds — as well as grass and maize forages. This ensures consistent quality, quick turnaround, and precise nutritional solutions tailored to the needs of your farm.
Body Condition Scoring
Body condition scoring was developed around 20 years ago and is widely accepted as a practical means of assessing the impact of negative energy balance in early lactation.
The system concentrates on the accurate determination of scores between 2.0 and 4.0, as these are the most critical for management decision. Scores range from 1 to 5 in increments of 0.25.
Calf Unit Assessment
Cow Signals
Many of our ruminant sales specialists are trained CowSignals® Advisors, and are trained to give you 1-on-1 advice, using the CowSignals® concept. They will ask you the right questions, and enlighten you with practical, ready to use knowledge and tips.
Their advice will enable you to recognise signals yourself which help to prevent disease and keep cows healthy. Healthy cows can help to achieve higher milk yield, higher efficiency and lower costs,
Dairy Herd Costings
Forage Analysis
Forage analysis is a vital part of modern animal production. The focus of most studies is the following three main attributes; Metabolisable Energy (MJ/kg), Protein content (%) and Fibre content (%).
We offer all DN customers FREE forage analysis and are able to analyse:
Silage
Fresh Grass
Haylage
Grass Sampling
There are numerous benefits of grass sampling, which include understanding grass quality, planning for silage fermentation and silage quality, help to plan for grass and forage throughout the grazing season and optimise feed value and livestock productivity.
Our grass sampling service will provide you with information on sugar content, nitrate nitrogen, dry matter, crude protein and fibre.
Herd Companion
The Herd Companion information management portal gives you access to milk recording, bulk tank milk quality and disease test results.
It enables you to enter event data in real-time, analyse current performance and progress. You will then receive customised, relevant management reports for your farm.
InterHerd+ Analysis
InterHerd+ is a comprehensive software package that allows you and your ruminant specialist to manage and analyse your herd by combining on-farm records and external data.
InterHerd+ automatically downloads data such as milk and disease test results from Milk Recording and other sources, then combines this with information gathered on farm.
Mineral Analysis
Rationing Programme
Soil Analysis
Soil analysis provides you with essential information about the pH and nutrients in your soil. This fundamental information highlights areas requiring improvement to support nutrient demand from the growing crop.
It will help you make informed decisions on the type and quantity of fertiliser or manures required to reach target levels for optimum crop production. This allows better planning of nutrient applications to the soil, avoiding over or under application of particular nutrients (such as when the same fertiliser is applied each year with no adjustment for changes). Not only will this make your business more efficient, it will also help to reduce the risk of valuable nutrients being lost to the environment.
For further information regarding any of the Technaical Services available from Dugdale Nutrition, please contact your local DN Sales Specialist or call the Sales Office on 01200 409943.