The objective of this study was to describe the deviation from target weight of the various ingredients added into the high cow ration (HCR) on 26 California dairies ranging in size from 1,100 to 6,900 cows. Records from a consecutive 12-mo period were extracted from the feeding management software FeedWatch 7.0. The variables included were date, recipe, recipe number, ingredient, loading sequence, target weight, actual weight and tolerance level (TL, deviation allowed per ingredient during loading). Descriptive statistics were conducted with SAS 9.3. The median TL assigned to ingredients across dairies ranged from 9 to 90 kg. The TL allowed a deviation from the median formulated target for the various ingredients across dairies of 0% (8.7%), > 0–2% (45.2%), > 2–5% (25.5%), > 5–10% (11.6%) and > 10% (9.0%). A total of 2.5% of the observations did not reach the target weight set by TL, and represented from 0.1 to 21.1% of all loads within a given dairy. Across dairies the median deviation from the target weight for the HCR recipe varied from < −2 (n = 2), −2 to < −1 (n = 2), −1 to 0 (n = 6), > 0 to 1 (n = 11), > 1 to 2% (n = 3), > 2% (n = 2). Seven dairies had 20 to 47% of their loads with a deviation from target > 40 kg. On 2 dairies 59% and 27% of the observations had a deviation from target of < −40 kg. Rolled corn and almond hulls were loaded with an interquartile range (IQR = Q₃-Q₁) | < 20| kg on 68% of the dairies. The deviation from target (Q₁) was | < 10| kg on 77% of the dairies. Overall, alfalfa hay, corn silage and canola had a IQR > 20 kg on 60 to 62% of the dairies, and a deviation from target (Q₃) | > 40| kg on 35 to 45% of the dairies. This represents a deviation (as percentage) of 2.1 to 12.9% (alfalfa hay), 2.2 to 5.5% (corn silage), and 2.3 to 7.3% (canola). Some dairies were able to load ingredients very close to the target weight, however, dairy producers should evaluate if readjusting the TL settings of some ingredients might reduce the deviation from target weight.