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Post by mal on Dec 12, 2010 12:21:48 GMT
Sunday 12th December, 2010: 0330hrs Good very early morning all of you,
It's hellish cold and icy.
The cows are still in bed. Time to head off and wake them up, ready to start milking at 4.
0345. Every morning we wonder around the cubicle shed and try (usually successfully) to spot "bullers" these are cows coming into heat ready to be served by our friendly AI man.
We will come onto the importance of Calving Index and getting cows back in calf later in my Blog. Let's break you in slowly first eh?
Whilst we are wondering around we will clear off any muck and wetness from the cubicle beds themselves to aid cow comfort and as importantly help to prevent Mastitis (more on that later too no doubt)
Animal welfare as you can imagine is a top priority in any decent dairy herd. Simply because healthy happy cows yield well and tend to get back in calf quickly. Even the most cost conscious Dairy Farmer wont scrimp on animal welfare.
0400 Right that's the button pushed to start the parlour and we are away, 468 cows in milk. Which we milk through a 60 point Rotary milking parlour. It takes about 3 hours including cleaning the parlour at the end of milking.
It's hard to believe how much mess nearly 500 cows can make if you've not spent time with them. Dirtier than pigs i would say.
Again as you can imagine cleanliness is a very high priority, mainly due to the risk of cross contamination between cows.
Another consideration is milk quality which sets our price from our milk buyer. Better quality milk demands a higher price. Our current milk price has reached the dizzy heights of 25ppl. Which is the highest price our buyer will pay regardless of quality.
0700hrs Right that's milking all finished. Another quick look at the cows while Steve is feeding, feed the two calves we have on a poorly cow and then home for breakfast.
I will cover the actual milking process and how we have formulated our ration (cow food) later this week.
Should you have any questions then please feel free to ask.
I promise there'll be pictures later in the week too and maybe a video (if i can figure that bit of my Blackberry out)
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Post by mal on Dec 12, 2010 19:48:49 GMT
10:00 hrs 12/12/10, Breakfast all done and back at work. Today we have a dairy engineer in to service the parlour. My job today is to repair broken ACRs (Automated Cluster Release). These work on a Pneumatic system which sucks a piston up the ACR tube. This piston carries a thin rope which is attached to the cluster (Unit) Quickly covering ACRs and their use. ACRsThe ACR is as i said attahced to the unit with a thin rope. The ACR is charged with air while the parlour is active. This holds the unit up (out of the muck)until a release button is pushed, allowing the unit to be attached to a cow. When the cow is milked (flow meter attached to ACR) the ACR releases the cluster from the cow and rehangs it. Some ACRs have a back flushing system attached which flushed teh cluster with a disinfectant solution to minimise (supposedly eliminate) mastitis cross contamination and to spray an iodine based teat spray onto the cows udder to seal it from infection. Ours don't currently but there are plans to put this system in place here. When ACRs stop working not only is the miking period increased (owing to to the time taken to clean and rehang the unit ) but the risk of contamination is also increased hugely, more so i feel in a Rotary parlour than in any other type of parlour (this is owing to the interval between the unit coming off the cow and the cow and the cow getting around to the bloke at the end of the Rotary). Having explained all that i guess it would pay to cover the cluster and it's use. Clusters (units)Well clearly we need a method of removing all this milk from these cows. I'm buggered if i am milking near on 500 cows by hand. So..., a fairly simple system of vacuum and pulsation is used. The cluster attached to a cow with a vacuum and pulsed air causes a rubber liner to massage the teat which in effect "pulls" the milk from the cow. The cow feels no pain or discomfort while being milked, rather if we didn't milk our cows regularly they would become very ill and most likely die. I will upload images of a cluster and hopefully a video of clusters being attached to cows. The milkers amongst you are more than welcome to criticise my technique once i have done so Afternoon milking tends to start at 1400 and is generally slightly faster than morning milking, this is owing to the slight difference in the interval between Morning and Afternoon milkings as opposed to the interval betweeen Afternoon and Morning milking (i could explain that better i suspect) Cows thrive on routine and as a result Dairy farming tends to follow quite a strict time table, any more than 5-10 minutes variation in timings will result in unhappy cows and a slight reduction in yields particularly amongst more sensitive cows. I suppose i shoud spend some time talking about Dairy cow breeds. Dairy BreedsThere many different breeds of cow as you'll be aware, we are currently milking a mainly Holstein cross herd, with a few Canadian Red crosses and some Jersey cross as well. Clearly you can milk any female cow that has either had a calf or is about to calve. However, clearly dairy orientated breeds offer attributes which are more attractive to dairy farmers than those of a beef breed. Holsteins are popular amongst dairy farmers in the UK mainly because they will produce more milk from forage than any other breed of cow (according to many dairy farmers anyway) I personally believe that when all things are considered a British Fresian will be a better cow than a Holstein. Whilst Belgian/ British Blues, will offer less milk yield across their life but have a higher value when they are slaughtered, if it was my money, i'd be buying Blues. If you care to buy me a pint i will bore you for hours as to why. 1400hrs. Right milking to do i'll be back with photos and all that lark tomorrow. Matchsticks are available in teh Club House for those of you who needs your eyes propping open
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Post by mcfarmer on Dec 12, 2010 21:43:39 GMT
Very interesting, good friends of ours have a 600 head Jersey dairy. They milk three times a day and have three hours to clean up until the next round. they have a hard time finding good help that won't leave them stranded by not giving notice.
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Post by genuinerisk on Dec 13, 2010 12:05:08 GMT
Interestingly, there is a strong move in Belgium to revert to pushing the milk yield of Blues again - they were, after all, a dual purpose breed and used t milk very well, so I'm told. Phil and Reg have, in fact, kept back a couple of BBx heifers out of high yielding dairy cows (not sure of their breeding - probably Holstein/Friesian crosses) and it will be interesting to see how they do.
Anyways, there's one Belgian Blue bull now beisng marketed for his daughter's milking ability, as well as good carcase yield !!
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Post by mal on Dec 14, 2010 16:05:05 GMT
McF,
I haven't worked a 3 times a day herd myself but there are a few locally. It seems a bit too factory farming for my liking. That said there is a move toward robots at the moment and i believe they lock the cow out after 4 visits so maybe i'm being too harsh on 3 times a dayers.
Julie,
As i said if i had control of our breeding programme i'd be binning the Camel cows and be looking at Blue.
They are friendlier, easier milking, much better on their feet, less prone to Mastitis (owing in part to being a slower milking breed) and offer a decent reward at the end of their life. I guess feeding for 8000 and attaining between 6 and 7000 is a down side to blues but it's a rare sight to see our cows eating all that's put in front of them tbh
Purely from a personal point of view, i'd sooner see a field full of healthy looking Blues than HFX
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Post by mal on Dec 15, 2010 9:56:00 GMT
08:44hrs 15/12/10Right well that's me on a day off today. I still woke at stupid o'clock this morning so i took a steady run (well drive) into work to catch up on some paperwork. I find that with day to day pressures of miking, lookering, AI, lame cows etc paperwork comes a very distant 8th or 9th on the list. There isn't a great deal to be done but still things tend to be put back in favour of looking after the cows (in my opinion this is exactly as it shoud be cos let's face it you caint milk a computer) Interherd,a piece of software that helps us manage the herd, detailing everything about the cows, from dates of birth, calving dates, days in milk through to lists of ailments and medicines that each animal has had since birth (or since it came onto the farm at least) needs updating with new movements, treatments and various other bits and pieces. Without this programme our work load would increase hugely, if only with sorting through various books and bits of paper. DEFRA (the government department that interferes with farming), tells us we must record certain key pieces of information. I am not going into what they want us to provide and why in any huge detail as i'm quite fond of you and would not want to drive you mad with all the nonsense, someone who has likely never seen a farm has determined we must provide. I imagine those of you from outside the farming community would be quite shocked at the shear amount of paperwork involved in milking cows. Firstly, each animal on any dairy farm in this country must have (or have in application) a passport (no photographs as yet to save the cows embarrassment at customs lol). Secondly, they must also show two ear tags (one large plastic ear tag and either another plastic tag or a metal tag, i'll go into more detail about that later if you're still awake The penalties for not having an ear tag or passport for your animals areI believe quite strict and rightly so. Thirdly, some form of record as to drug treatments and vaccinations must exist. Most farmers historically have held this information either in their heads (easier with smaller herd clearly), or in some form of journal, day book or diary. There has been a move to computerisation lately, with various pieces of software available to help us with herd management. Interherd is just one of these and it suits our system best in my opinion. Our local vets operate a Daisy record keeping system which ties into Inteherd well . This is a paper based system (a simple duplicate book) which is updated with AI details, medications, lameness, calvings etc which is then transferred to Interherd. Passports I have attached an image of a Cattle Passport so you can get some idea of what information they contain. Each cow will be allocated a unique reference number (this is displayed on the Ear Tag, Passport and within Interherd) this number will stay with the cows from birth. Inside will be details of any movements from farm to farm, market shows and finally slaughter. Without this document the cow if pretty much worthless in terms of selling or slaughter as no reputable farmer or dealer would consider taking animals without passports. As i understand it passports were brought in to help keep track of cattle movement to help locate the source of infectious disease such as Foot and Mouth and BSE. The benefit to farmers obviously speaks for it's self Attachments:
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Post by mal on Dec 15, 2010 9:56:52 GMT
Ear TagsAs i mentioned earlier each cow will have two tags, one in each ear, These contain a unique herd number (ties to the herd the cow was born to) for example 230123 and a unique 5 or 6 digit reference. For example 401776. Together with a symbol (a crown for the UK) and a two figure alphabetical letter code to signify the country of origin UK for the UK ( do you see what they did there lol) Attachments:
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Post by mal on Dec 15, 2010 10:02:42 GMT
Heat TimeHeat time is a computer system which reads information from a collar attached to the cow's neck to determine when a cow is coming onto heat (bulling), we use this information to "serve" (inseminate) to bring the cows back to in calf (which you will understand they must be to continue milking at a reasonable yield) I also use Heat Time to monitor ill cows or cows i suspect to be not quite as they should be. Heat time basically measures movement and changes in movement patterns. A "bulling" cow will show an increase in movement of upto 50% whilst clearly a cow that's not right will show a similar percentage decrease in motitlity. Whilst Heat Time is a very useful tool there is no substitute for time spend observing the cows. Casting an eye over the cows is invaluable both for heat detection and for spotting lame or poorly cows. Above is a diagram showing typical examples of behaviour you would expect from "bulling" cows. Please keep in mind that cows will not necessarily show all these signs nor will they be as pronounced as in the diagram. Holstein cows have a very narrow heat (typically between 6 and 8 hours) however a particularly quiet cow may only sniff another cow or rub it's head across another cows back end once or twice in a heat. So you can imagine heat detection is one of the trickier challanges we face day to day. Should we miss a cow coming to heat we would need to wait between 18 and 24 days for that cow to come bulling again. This has an impact on our calfing interval which we would aim to keep at around 380- 400 days although for some cows this could be upto 500 days depending on their nature and how well they display heat. Attachments:
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Post by mal on Dec 15, 2010 10:07:19 GMT
Freeze BrandingClearly we need a means of identifying cattle quickly and effectively day to day. While Ear tag numbers are good they tend to be long numbers and easily obscured by ear hair, grease and dirt. DEFRA (or it's predecessor MAFF) determined that heat branding (as i believe they do in the US) was not acceptable, so we use a freeze branding method, whereby a number (between 1 and 4 digits usually) will be frozen onto the rear of the cows. Thereby enabling staff or vets to quickly indentify the animal should she require AI, or any other special attention. Without freeze branding running a large herd of cows would be next to impossible. I would estimate I use a freeze brand to refer to cows 100 times a day. This might take the form of passing information to a colleague for example 718 isn't quite looking her usual self. This enables closer attention to be paid to that particular animals while we are milking, or using a freeze brand to interrogate Interherd for history to help with heat detection As you can imagine saying "she's the black and white one with the tail" wouldn't be terribly helpful here as HFX tend to present with a Black and White colouration. Inevitably one develops a relationship with one's animals and I will admit to having a few favourite cows. These tend to benefit from extra attention from me, either with a kind word, a friendly slap on the arse or a rub on the head, i have even gone so far as to give Bobo (our freeze brand 747) a cuddle when she's looking mopey. I assure you i'm not crazy and this fairly common practice within a dairy herd. That said equally there are cows which owing to their behaviour in the parlour or their apparent inability to stay healthy which fall out of favour with the herd. That's not to say they are treated poorly or given anything but the best care we can, they just perhaps wont be looked upon as kindly as a friendlier "better" cow Attachments:
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Post by mal on Dec 15, 2010 10:13:37 GMT
As i mentioned on Sunday, the cows are housed in cubicles and bedded on Sawdust. I've atahed this image to gove you an idea of teh level of cleanliness that is expected within the housing area of a typical dairy farm.
Once again i cant stress enough how important cleanliness and animal welfare is to a dairy farmer.
Typically a cow will spend between 12 and 15 hours laid down "cudding" that is to say cvhewing on a cud ball (from the grass or silage they feed on). Each cud will be chewed between 70 and 8- times before being swallowed to enable the cow to get the most from it's feed. Every hour spent "cudding" is said to produce upto a litre of milk. So ahving the cows comfortable wil palatable rations is of utmost importance.
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Post by mal on Dec 15, 2010 10:45:53 GMT
Rations and feeding
Another vital part of dairy farming is feeding and farmulating a Total Meal Ration (TMR)
Clearly without food cows tend to die. that in very simple terms we try to avoid.
In all seriousness, how and what you feed cows will have a huge impact on milk yields and quality.
Please keep in mind i am not an animal traditionalist and have only a working knowledge of formulating rations.
Our TMR contains
Grass silage Grass which has been mown, wilted, chopped, treated with an additive and allowed to ferment in a clamp.
Wholecrop Wheat silage (this is exactly as it sounds everything growing about the ground in a wheat field is harvested, mixed with an additive and stored in a clamp for winter feeding)
Sugar Beet and Lactose permeate mix
Sugar beet in the form of pellets which are mixed together with Lactose Permeate (a bi product from teh cheese making process)
Wheat Straw This is mainly used to bulk out the ration and to help solidify the cows dung
Concentrate pellets These can contain any number of vitamins and minerals depending on what your silage etc are lacking, Mayo would be the man to ask about this in greater detail as he makes it for a living.
All these ingredients are tipped into a feeder wagon (pictured below) and fed along a feed passage (pictured above)
We feed between 26 and 28 tonnes of TMR a day which equates to around 50 kilo of TMR per cow.
A good way of telling a good ration is to take a handful and roll it into as tight a ball as possible. Let go and the ball shoudl spring back within 5 seconds.
A variation of 15-20% in feed intake can and will effect milk yields by as much as 25% per cow across the day.
Cows would rather go hungry than eat unpalatable silage or TMR so you can see how good silage making process, clamping silage well and maintaining a clean feed passage are vital to keeping your cows happy and well fed.
Owing to the way cows eat, a good amount (upto 45%) of feed would potentially be wasted if left. Cows "nose out" silage while they are eating resulting in them being unable to reach what's left. As a result they put undue pressure on their necks trying to reach feed. This has a detrimental effect on not only the well being of the animal but oviously how much silage they can eat.
We over come this issue by regularly pushing the silage back to the cows.
There are a number of ways to do this, from using a pick (fork) to push it back by hand (this is time consuming and hard work) right through to a robot which will travel teh feed passage regularly pushing silage up, return to a charging point autoatically and repaeat this hourly.
We employ a tractor mounted silage pusher as pictured below,many different designs exist anid choice is purely down to which piece of equipment best suits yoru system
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Post by genuinerisk on Dec 15, 2010 12:03:40 GMT
Mal - if you get time over the next few days/weeks/months ( ;D), you're very welcome to just come and have a look round our herd purely from the interest point fo view (as is anyone else reading this).
Nearly all of them are here on my farm - one or two are permanently over on Newlands where Reg and Phil's dairy herd is. Easy to see everything this time of year!!
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Post by mal on Dec 15, 2010 17:16:33 GMT
That's very kind Julie. I will try to work it into my day off after Christmas
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Post by cornishwelsh on Dec 15, 2010 21:18:38 GMT
What make of rotary you got mal
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Post by mal on Dec 16, 2010 7:04:34 GMT
It's a Fullwood. Not great TBH bloody thing would cripple most people just in maintenance costs. The cheese factory has a team of maintenance folk and it seems one or other of them is here every day doing something to keep it running
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