Oklahoma Ag Leadership Program
Irish Animal Nutritional Innovation on Display at Keenan
Thu, 23 Feb 2012 23:11:35 CST
An innovative approach to developing and mixing rations for beef and dairy cattle was a part of the Thursday February 23rd agenda for Class XV of the Oklahoma Ag Leadership Program. The young agricultural leaders stopped at Keenan System Mix operations in Carlow County- south of Dublin- in the tiny village town of Borris. Keenan started in 1978- building mixer wagons- but their founder wanted to be more than just a piece of equipment on a dairy or beef cattle operation. He had a vision that saw Keenan as "a leader in ethical and profitable solutions for the food chain."
With that aim in mind- they hired nutritionists to help develop ways to help cattle producers mix a more perfect mouthful of feed for their animals. Along the way in 2009, they developed what they call their Mech- Fiber approach to mixing feed. The company says that they have fine tuned their machines to allow 'tweaking' of rations to maximize ruminant fermentation- and digestibility- and improve feed efficiency and as a result, milk or meat output by as much as 30%.
They have done research along these lines in Ireland, the United Kingdom and on the continent in Europe- and have also had research done using their equipment and proprietary system at the University of Illinois in the US.
We have a number of pictures that we have posted in our set of photos from the OALP travels in Scotland and Ireland- they show the process of manufacturing their mixer wagons from the first pieces of metal to the finished product- click here for our FLICKR set of photos.
After the tour, we talked with John McCurdy, Business Innovation Director for Keenan about their system- including their most recent innovation where they now have their high end wagons hooked up to where information on rations and the proper mix are stored up on the "cloud." Click on the LISTEN BAR below to take a listen to our converstion with McCurdy.
If you want to learn more about Keenan, click here for their website- we have linked you straight to their pages on their Mech Fiber technology.
WebReadyTM Powered by WireReady® NSI
