A 500-cow Southwest dairy booked corn silage at $60/ton. Shrink-adjusted, the cows ate $220/ton DM — $0.89/cow/day, $162,000 a year, before milk hit the tank.

The harvest report looked clean. RFV solid, CP in range, NDF in the window. The high group stalled anyway. The Bullvine Podcast walks through the three-layer trap: shrink as a ghost line, DM drift accelerated by 2026 Southwest heat, and group misallocation that feeds your best forage to dry cows. Then the 90-day fix that closes about 63% of the leak.

What You'll Learn

• Why a "good" lab sheet hides 5–17% silage shrink and 12–40% wet-byproduct shrink
• How $60/ton silage becomes $220/ton DM once shrink and DM drift get honest
• Why one NDFd unit is worth $2.40–$4.86/ton DM in lactating cows and zero in far-off dry cows
• The four-step, $25,200 walkthrou ...