In the dairy industry where margins are often tight, making the most out of home-grown forages is key. Grazed grass is the cheapest feed on the farm yet often it is not utilized to its full potential.
Digital Dermatitis (DD) is a highly infectious disease, with associated costs due to loss of production, ranging from £75 - £81 per case (N.Bell), so minimising its effects are a no brainer, especially as DD can be under diagnosed in many herds.
Today’s dairy cow deals with some significant challenges in meeting the expectations of the modern dairy industry. Some of these challenges include the demands associated with unprecedented levels of production, the expectation of high reproductive performance, the use of high energy rations, and being exposed to other stresses on a modern dairy farm.
Feeding for best performance revolves around better understanding a cow’s nutritional demands, and how feed is broken down and used in the digestion system.
With ever tightening margins in milk production, rising capital costs, competition for land use from other sectors of agriculture and political uncertainty, there is an ever growing need to maximise margins from your farmed land.
It’s been a difficult season to say the least! The drought of 2018 has had a drastic effect on forage stocks which have been reserved for winter feeding with Dry Matter (DM) yields of grass on farm estimated to be down up to 50% compared to 2017.
The last two years have flown by!! In 18 months, I visited 14 countries and boarded 45 flights. With all my travelling done, and the report handed in, waiting to be published, I’m looking forward to sharing my thoughts and findings with the industry.
After the hottest and driest summer in a generation and feed stocks at an all-time low, cows are at risk of being too thin. Body condition scoring is the best way to measure cow condition and gives an indication of energy status.
With the hot and dry weather reducing grass availability, producers are being advised to monitor and budget forage stocks now to avoid a shortfall come winter.
Getting your cows and heifers out of negative energy balance sooner and getting them gaining weight earlier is the key to improved conception rates. A large-scale study of over 1887 Holstein dairy cows by Professor Paul Fricke of Wisconsin University, looked at the effect changes in liveweight on conception rate to first service.
