Most dairy cows in Frank Goodman’s herd are approaching the end of their lactation so plans are under way to dry off cows and develop a feed management plan for the herd.Frank manages a herd of 90 cows, the majority of which calve in the spring. Animals are currently averaging around 16l/cow/ day with a butterfat and protein content of 4.85% and 3.7 % respectively.
Most dairy cows in Frank Goodman’s herd are approaching the end of their lactation so plans are under way to dry off cows and develop a feed management plan for the herd.
Frank manages a herd of 90 cows, the majority of which calve in the spring. Animals are currently averaging around 16l/cow/ day with a butterfat and protein content of 4.85% and 3.7 % respectively.
Cows yielding less than 7l to 8l/cow/day are being dried off, which usually results in around six cows being dried off on a weekly basis. Current herd production levels are allowing Frank to consider moving to once-a-day milking in the near future.
Dairylink farmer Frank Goodman. \ Philip Doyle.
He feels that this will not adversely affect milk yield as cows are nearing the end of their lactation and will also reduce labour demands on the farm over the next few weeks.
Frank anticipates that it may result in a slight increase in somatic cell count (SCC) but he does not think that it should result in any penalties. Cows will also be closely monitored and if any cows show spikes in SCC on once-a-day milking, they will be dried off immediately.
Selective dry cow therapy
Frank adopted a selective dry cow therapy programme for the herd last year and plans to continue with this procedure. The SCC history of each cow in the herd is reviewed with his vet and animals are allocated to one of the following categories:
Under 150,000 cells/ml – use teat sealant only.Between 150,000 and 200,000 cells/ ml – if cow has only one recorded case at this level then only a teat sealant is used. Otherwise a dry cow antibiotic and teat sealant is used.Over 200,000 cells/ml – most cows will receive a dry cow antibiotic and teat sealant. Consideration may be given to using only a teat sealant on individual cows that have only exhibited one milk recording greater than 200,000 cells/ ml with decisions made on a case-by-case basis.Cows were vaccinated for salmonella in September and there are plans to vaccinate the animals with Rotavec in January. Decisions about parasite control will be made after discussing the matter with his veterinary surgeon
Feed management
A recent audit of fodder stocks showed that there were adequate supplies of forage available to feed all animals in the herd over the winter. Samples of second-cut silage and maize silage were also taken for analysis and there are plans to analyse first-cut silage shortly. A summary of the main features of the analysis reports for both forages is given in Table 1.
Results indicate the grass silage has a satisfactory intake value and average energy (ME) concentration, while starch levels in the maize silage are considered to be excellent.
Frank recently carried out a review of his feed management plan with me. We found that average condition score in the herd was between 2.75 and 3.0, which is the target condition score for cows at drying off. Some adjustments to the diets being fed to the groups were also made and are summarised in Table 2.
Previously, Frank had been feeding a three-way mix of barley, maize and soya hulls to all cows. However, the feed review indicated that continuing to feed this mix to the lactating and dry cows may limit protein supply, so a 20 % crude protein (CP) concentrate will now be fed to the lactating cows and a pre-calver concentrate will be fed to the dry cows.
The three-way mix will continue to be fed to cows that have been separated from the rest of the herd and earmarked for culling.
It is also hoped that by feeding a pre-calver to dry cows that any future problems with milk fever will be prevented. Frank experienced some issues with milk fever among the last cows that calved in the autumn and a mineral analysis of the diet being fed to them showed that the dietary cation-anion balance (DCAB) value was in excess of 300 meq/kg DM.
Feeding diets with values in this range have been shown to leave a cow more at risk of developing milk fever. However, the planned changes should reduce the risk of this disorder happening again.
Calving management
Cows approaching calving will be taken to a straw-bedded pen. Calves will receive 4l of colostrum as soon as possible after birth and will receive another feed of colostrum at the next milking when they will be removed from their dam.
The young calves will continue to be fed milk for the next 14 days before being offered powdered milk replacer with a CP content of 23 % and fat content of 20 %.
Frank has been weighing young calves born this autumn and monitoring their progress. The average liveweight gain (LWG) of calves born in October was 0.75kg/calf/day, while calves born in mid-November are currently averaging 0.7kg/calf/day.
Assess the condition score of late lactation cows to ensure they reach 3.0 at drying off.Use milk recording data to assess suitability of cows for selective dry cow therapy.Monitor the DCAB of your dry cow diet to minimise the risk of milk fever post-calving. Read more
Dairylink: strategies for calf rearing and sire selection
Dairylink: driving milk from forage in Down
This is a subscriber-only article
SHARING OPTIONS: