New resources available to help farmers develop safety plans

According to statistics from WorkSafeBC, animals are to blame for one-third (33 per cent) of injuries sustained by workers on dairy farms in the province.

The other top sources of injuries are working surfaces (19 per cent); machines and vehicles (12 per cent); and buildings and structures (nine per cent).

“Dairy farms are one of the most diverse working environments and workplace hazards are not always animal related,” said Tadhg O’Leary, AgSafe agricultural safety advisor. “It’s a farmer’s responsibility to eliminate those hazards by developing a comprehensive workplace safety plan.”

To help farmers create such a plan, WorkSafeBC, AgSafe and the BC Dairy Association have teamed up to create new dairy farming safety resources that aims to strengthen occupational safety within the industry. The new publication Health and Safety for Dairy Farms describes basic health and safety requirements for dairy farm owners and employers. It is accompanied by a related Forms and Checklists document that owners and employers can use as part of their overall health and safety program.

“We’ve seen an increase in the number of work-related deaths and serious injuries in the dairy industry over the last 10 years,” said Doug Pasco, WorkSafeBC agriculture industry specialist. “We hope the new safety resources will help raise awareness about workplace health and safety and help prevent future deaths and serious injuries.”

While the number of time-loss claims in the dairy industry remains stable, during the 10-year period from 2006-15, there were six work-related deaths and 126 serious injuries recorded, according to WorkSafeBC.

This guide was developed using feedback from dairy farmers members about the safety challenges they face.

“Occupational safety is an ongoing concern for B.C. dairy farmers,” said Trevor Hargreaves, BC Dairy Association director of producer relations and communications. “The new guide assists with improving safety awareness and practices, thereby reducing the incidents of serious work-related injury.”

Source: COS-MAG

Specialist dairy producers in Ireland have now become the most cost competitive within the EU with the lowest cash-cost per kg solids base, expert analysis of sector for 2015 has shown.

As the leading producers forged ahead on production in 2015, following the lifting of the cap on output after the abolition of milk quotas on April 1, 2015, the top dairymen proved their ability to capitalise on their operational advantages.

However the positive future for Irish dairymen comes with a warning that the higher cost of land and labour in Ireland, threatens to undermine some of the Irish financial advantage.

Teagasc analysis of performance on specialist dairy farms in Ireland has shown that Irish producers had the lowest cash costs as a percentage of output (77pc), followed by France (83pc), Netherlands (92pc), Germany (99pc), with the highest cash costs as a percentage of output was Denmark (120pc).

But the comparison pointed out that “when total economic costs were considered, the competitive position of the countries examined in the study changed and the competitive advantage of grass based Irish producers deteriorated when all imputed charges for owned resources are taken into consideration”.

They found that “the most significant imputed costs that contributed to the relatively high total economic costs experienced by grass based production in Ireland, was the imputed charge for owned land and labour”.

On a cash costs basis, per unit of milk solids, Ireland had the lowest cash costs per kg of milk solids produced in 2015 (€2.87) followed by Belgium (€2.88), Italy (€3.43),

France (€3.47), Netherlands (€3.61), Germany (€3.71) and Denmark (€4.83).

Source: Independent

Overmilking can damage teat ends and compromise udder health. A simple test can help you determine if you are over or under milking.

Traditionally, the recommendation to dairy producers has been to “milk ALL cows as completely as possible at every milking.” This recommendation has been revised due to recent research and field experience. It is impossible to milk a cow completely dry; there will always be some milk in the udder even after “complete” milk out because she is constantly making milk. 

Overmilking is a matter of concern because it may affect teat condition and udder health. In the past, it was believed that all milk needed to be removed from the udder to maximize milk yield. However, breeding for high milk yields has provided cows with a high alveolar capacity. Due to this, cows are more efficient as milk producers.

Overmilking starts when the milk flow to the teat cistern is less than the flow out of the teat canal. Mouthpiece chamber vacuum typically increases during overmilking and fluctuations become larger. If the vacuum in the teat cistern is higher than beneath the teat end for short periods of time, the reverse pressure gradients across the teat canal may increase bacterial invasion of the teat cistern. Reverse pressure gradients occur only during milking of empty teats (Rasmussen et al., 1994), and overmilking will therefore increase the possibility of bacteria entering the teat. Teat end health is also greatly affected by overmilking. Hyperkeratosis of the teat is often experienced in herds with long unit on times. 

Hyperkeratosis means excessive keratin growth. It is a thickening of the skin that lines the teat canal and the external orifice. Producers often notice a wart-like structure or rough spots at the end of the teat. This can be a result of poor milking management and long unit on times. Cows that experience these effects are often seen to have an increase in somatic cell count. This is due to the inability to thoroughly clean teat ends with hyperkeratosis, leaving bacteria behind to enter the teat canal during milking. 

As you can see, overmilking and prolonged unit attachment can greatly affect your herd’s udder health. How do you test if you are overmilking? There is a very simple way to do so that can be done by anyone on the farm. The strip yield test looks at overall completeness of milking. It can be done two different ways, by hand or with a unit. I prefer to do this evaluation by hand, but your preference may differ. 

To accomplish the test, immediately after milking, hand strip each quarter for 15 seconds, collecting the milk in a container. I use a plastic measuring cup. A properly milked cow should have about one cup of milk left in the udder, if there is more or less, then a milk out problem may exist on your farm. 

Performing this test with a milking unit requires a little more precision. A milking meter is required to perform the test using this method. To do so, the milking unit must be reattached within 30 seconds of automatic removal and downward pressure applied. Continue applying pressure for 15 seconds before removing the unit. Record the amount of milk that was harvested using this method. Once again, about one cup of milk should be left in the udder. 

If you discover that a problem exists on your farm with over or under milking, there are a number of different factors that can attribute to this. It is important to properly maintain your milking machines to reach optimum performance. If automatic detachers are being used, adjustment for timely removal of the milking unit can be critical to help reduce unit on time. If your farm is manually detaching the unit, employees need to be aware of the issue that is occurring and be more consistent in removing the unit as soon as “end of milking” is reached for each animal. It is important to look at your overall milking routine and have timely unit attachment and proper let down, quiet cow handling and timely unit adjustment, and proper alignment. 

In conclusion, a few simple steps on your farm to prevent overmilking can help decrease your overall herd somatic cell count. Routinely perform a strip yield test on your farm to be sure units are being removed in a timely manner and make proper adjustments as needed to reach optimum udder health. 

Source: PennState Extension

Farmers speak frequently about the volatility in the dairy industry and how it is affecting their profit margins, especially milk and feed price fluctuations, which have become more marked as we move into a global marketplace.

While farmers cannot control these global fluctuations, the solution is to concentrate on the factors that are within their control and to start with those that will have most effect. Fertility can be a good place to start as pregnancies drive profits, improving milk sales and calf income while potentially helping reduce costs.

According to James Woods, of Genus ABS, many farmers would be well advised to start by considering how they monitor fertility, and whether the measures used allow them to achieve high level performance.

At present many farmers are still relying on calving interval as the main measure of reproductive performance, however this has a number of pitfalls that make it an inappropriate measure of performance. Firstly it is very historic and looks at performance over the past year rather than performance now. How does an extending calving interval help you identify risk factors and take action when the problems will be many months old?

“If you want to improve performance you need to use measures that are timely and active, giving a current position and allowing action to be taken as required. Encouragingly an increasing number of farmers state they are moving to using 21 day pregnancy rate to track and manage fertility. The 21 day pregnancy rate gives a true picture of fertility of eligible animals and encourages prompt management action as required.”

Performance is monitored using 21 day pregnancy rate which is calculated as the number of cows pregnant out of the number of cow days eligible to become pregnant in a 21 day period. In so doing it reflects changes in both heat detection and submission rates. Being time specific it allows proactive decision making to address any fall in performance.

For larger herds RMS has proven invaluable regarding fertility performance. This involves a highly trained technician walking the cows every day, chalking them and inseminating them at the optimum time. Farmers can be sceptical about this service but James Woods points out that “the proof of the pudding is in the eating”.

He quoted an example of herds recently new to RMS which were monitored across the UK, which had a total of 6778 cows. In the six months before starting on RMS the herds were averaging a 13% pregnancy rate but following use of the service for 6 months they increased this to 19%, creating nearly twice as many pregnancies in the process. The average pregnancy rate in Northern Irleand is 13% so there is lots of opportunity for herds to improve profit margins and performance through better fertility.

James went on to outline the advantages of improved fertility performance:

Increased milk sales per cow/year – getting cows in calf more quickly means there is a higher proportion of fresh calved cows in the herd and fewer stale milkers. This has the effect of increasing annual milk production and consequently income.

Better feed efficiency – cows in early lactation use feed more efficiently leading to more cost-effective milk production.

Increased calf crop – more calvings means more calves and on RMS the sires are specifically selected for each individual cow which means better performing animals coming into the herd and the opportunity to sell any extras at a much higher value.

More planned culls – with more cows getting in calf, fewer will be sold barren. This means more cows can be selected for culling for management reasons such as production, with less being culled merely because they fail to get in calf.

Professional service – every day from a trained technician.

Achieving and maintaining high levels of fertility can have a significant impact in reducing the consequences of volatility by ensuring a constant supply of fresh calved cows and more calvings per year. And evidence shows that by taking a planned approach to getting cows back in calf, it is possible to improve high levels of reproductive performance.

Source: Farming Life

Unmanned aerial vehicles, autonomous tractors and other technologies will continue to emerge as producers meet world food needs in the near and distant future, according to experts.

Those experts believe technology will continue to emerge and make possible giant leaps throughout the next decade as agriculture industries and producers work to meet world food needs in 2050.

Presentations at the 2016 Texas Plant Protection Association addressed the theme of this year’s conference: Advanced Technologies for Texas Agriculture. From smartphone apps to unmanned aerial vehicles, also known as UAVs, speakers said there are big changes in how food and fiber is going to be produced.

Bob Avant, program director for Texas A&M AgriLife Research corporate relations, provided an overview of farming in the next 10 years. He said the “10,000-pound gorilla” agriculture faces is feeding 9 billion people by 2050.

“It’s going to affect agriculture greatly in terms of food supply,” he said. “We are going to have to increase protein production plus protect how much we waste in terms of spoilage and portions on the the table.”

He said farmers in the future will continue to rely on data to make decisions. He said larger farms will be more efficient “because the equipment is getting more expensive. We will likely see more sharing or partnering on equipment use and systems.”

That’s because the price tags on autonomous tractors and related equipment will continue to be more expensive to own, though farmers will utilize the ability to push a button and have an autonomous tractor with a grain buggy pull right up beside a harvester when needed.

Precision applications such as planters, sprayers and strip-till cropping systems will play an even bigger role in the next 10 years. He predicts farmers will go from big iron to small iron, in other words using less horsepower tractors as farmers continue to switch to strip till methods rather than conventional disking that requires large equipment.

Technology and new information will help producers increase per-acre yields while reducing the use of natural resources like water, Avant said.

“Ten years ago we were dealing with sorghum lodging, two-bale cotton to the acre and yield variance on corn,” Avant said. “Nowadays corn is much more drought tolerant, we’re seeing 100 bushels to the acre, and three to four bales of cotton to the acre is expected. And it’s not just the equipment, crop genetics are going to be another exciting thing 10 years from now.”

He said soil health and cover crops will be two important areas to watch over the next 10 years.

“There will be a total systems approach to how we farm,” he said.

Texas A&M AgriLife currently has more than 40 scientists involved in a UAV project that is evaluating soils, plant stress, insects, and weeds as well as developing decision support aids for farmers and ranchers. Avant said the program is the largest in the U.S.

“We can take data collected from a UAV and measure plant height, other aspects of plant health and other characteristics far more than just measuring predictive production yields,” he said.

These experiments are taking place at the Texas A&M Farm near College Station as well as Corpus Christi and Weslaco.

Avant said the average farmer might not go out and spend thousands of dollars on UAV equipment, but they they may see value in the information the technology would make available to them.

“I don’t think a farmer will want to become a GIS expert,” he said. “Will there be a farmer that wants to know what’s going on in the field and how to remedy it? Yes, there will be some that will go out and spend the money on a simple UAV system. But the remedies will be beyond the scope of farmers because of the sophistication of information. Farmers will likely rely more on crop consultants to translate that information.”

The big data collected from UAVs and other sophisticated machinery will lead to dashboard systems, hubs of information that will integrate all facets of crop production concurrently going on in the field, Avant said.

The conference technology theme drew more than 300 attendees consisting of agricultural producers, industry representatives, as well as Extension and research scientists.

Source: Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service 

If American farmers do not cool their non-lactating dairy cows, they stand to lose a collective $810 million a year, a significant blow to their financial well-being, a new University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences study shows. Albert De Vries, seen in the photo above, an associate professor in the UF/IFAS animal sciences department, led the study.

If American farmers do not cool their non-lactating dairy cows, they stand to lose a collective $810 million a year, a significant blow to their financial well-being, a new University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences study shows.

These cows, known to farmers and scientists as “dry cows,” do not produce milk because they’re in the last two months of their nine-month pregnancy. Farmers stop milking cows during those two months, and the cow responds by going dry – no longer producing milk. The cow needs the dry period to grow the last two months of the calf and get her mammary system and body ready to produce more milk again after the next calf is born, said UF/IFAS animal sciences associate professor Albert De Vries.

Bear in mind, many farmers do keep their dry cows cool, De Vries said. Farmers cool their cows by frequently sprinkling water on the cow’s back and using fans to blow air on them. But De Vries and doctoral student Fernanda Ferreira wanted to find out the costs of not cooling dry cows.

In the study, published in the Journal of Dairy Science, De Vries and Ferreira examined farm climate data in New York state, California and Wisconsin. They determined how many days per year a dry cow in each state would suffer from heat stress if it’s not kept cool regularly. From there, they calculated how many dry cows would suffer from heat stress in a year in the U.S. and multiplied that with the economic loss per dry cow as a result of suffering from heat stress in their dry periods.

Thus, the $810 million loss would be the cost of lost opportunity or the economic cost of milk not produced if all 9.3 million American dairy cows were too hot when they were dry, De Vries said. Many dairy farmers do cool their dry cows; consequently, the real loss from not cooling dry cows is less than $810 million. Researchers do not know how much less.

“But still, many farmers often ignore cooling dry cows, not realizing that dry cows under heat stress produce less milk later,” De Vries said.

“Farmers and scientists have often assumed that dry cows do not suffer from heat stress, but we have learned now that they do produce less milk after calving,” De Vries said. “There are more effects from the heat stress when the cow is dry, such as lower immunity. Also, the calves that are born from others that had heat stress the last two months of their pregnancy don’t do as well when they grow up.”

Source: University of Florida

The use of deep straw bedding and calf jackets, as well as providing extra calories during cold temperatures, will result in healthier calves and improved gains.

It is time to change to winter bedding, bring out the calf jackets, and consider an extra feeding to provide calves extra protection from low temperatures.

A calf is born with only two to four percent of body weight as fat, which will not last long if she is forced to burn fat for heat production. Burning body fat for heat can lead to lower growth rates, compromised immune status, and even death. The need for straw bedding at this time of the year to provide warmth for young calves is true both in barns and in hutches. Unless the calf barn has supplemental heat, it should be well-ventilated but without drafts on the calf. It should also be within five degrees of outside temperatures, necessitating the use of straw bedding and calf jackets.

If you normally use shavings as calf bedding during summer, it is now time to switch to straw bedding to help keep calves warm. Michigan State University Extension recommends using straw bedding when temperatures are in the 40s or below. Straw bedding is ideal when daytime highs or nighttime lows are below the thermo-neutral zone for a young calf. A newborn Holstein calf has to burn energy to keep herself warm when temperatures are below 50 degrees Fahrenheit. If there is draft, wet bedding, or an immune system challenge, then the critical temperature is higher.

Straw is the best choice of bedding to provide thermal insulation for the young calf. Straw should be bedded deep enough for the calf to nestle in. This traps warm air around the calf, which will help maintain body heat. For winter months, the straw should be deep enough that when the calf is lying down its legs are generally not visible. A drawback to straw is that it tends to hold moisture, so it is important to add fresh bedding regularly and consider a layer of shavings underneath the straw to draw the moisture away from the calf. Moisture exceeding 20 percent is too high. If you kneel with all your weight in the calf bedding, any moisture on your pants indicates the bedding is too wet.

Calf jackets are another way to protect calves from losing excess body heat. The more heat a calf loses to the environment, the more calories need to be consumed in order for the calf to stay warm. The use of deep straw bedding and calf jackets during low temperatures will help young calves stay warm, resulting in improved average daily gains and immune status.

A good rule of thumb: For every 10 degrees Fahrenheit below freezing (32 F), the calf should get 10 percent more milk to meet its needs. This means that if it is 0 F outside, the calf should consume 32 percent more milk. If you normally feed 3 quarts twice a day, then adding a third feeding of at least 1.9 quarts would best meet the calves’ needs. You can add more volume to the two current feedings (feed 4 quarts at each feeding), however the calf would benefit most from a separate feeding even if the feedings are spread equally throughout the day. Be careful in adding extra powder to the same volume of feeding, as too high of solids (18 percent and above) will cause diarrhea. Also, avoid adding extra fat to the milk which can depress starter intake, potentially decreasing overall caloric intake.

When caring for calves in cold climates, the use of deep straw bedding, calf jackets, and providing extra calories during cold temperatures is necessary and will result in healthier calves and improved gains.

Source: MSU Extension

Now that corn harvest is complete, producers hopefully can look forward to having quality silage that is stable and well protected. The next steps are to monitor and maintain the integrity of the plastic covering (or bag silos, or bale wrap) and manage feedout to prevent heating and spoilage.

“Aerobic spoilage is one of the main causes of losses in silage production,” explains Bob Charley, Ph.D., Forage Products Manager, Lallemand Animal Nutrition. “The enemy of high-quality silage is oxygen, and opening new silage for feedout re-introduces oxygen into the silage mass. Even if producers have done everything right up to this point, there can still be significant losses at feedout without proper management practices.”

During feedout, exposure to oxygen allows spoilage yeasts to become active again, which then starts the process of aerobic spoilage, causing the silage to heat, driving dry matter and nutrient losses and potentially leading to mold growth, severe spoilage and mycotoxin production. Losses can be as high as 30 to 40 percent of silage dry matter (DM),1 and the most highly digestible forage nutrients are lost first.

To help prevent these losses, producers should use best feedout management practices, such as:

1.Avoid removing the plastic cover too far ahead of feeding;

2.Keep the face as flat and tight as possible;

3.Feed out at a rate fast enough to avoid heating;

4.Do not leave silage sitting in loose piles to compost;

5.Minimize time between taking silage from the face and mixing in the ration;

6.Discard all spoiled or moldy silage; and

7.Use an inoculant that is research-proven to prevent heating and spoilage at ensiling.

Using an inoculant containing the high dose-rate Lactobacillus buchneri 40788 can help improve the aerobic stability of silage. Silage inoculated with L. buchneri 40788 will be more resistant to heating and spoilage by reducing yeast levels, which are the main drivers of instability. L. buchneri 40788, applied at 400,000 CFU per gram of silage or 600,000 CFU per gram of high-moisture corn (HMC), is the only inoculant bacteria strain reviewed by the FDA and allowed to claim improved aerobic stability.

“Using these strategies as part of your overall silage management program can help minimize yeast growth and help you to retain more valuable nutrients for feeding and help increase profitability,” Dr. Charley says.

Despite low commodity prices, Ohio farmers can stay in the black in 2017 — but they will need to tighten their belts and slash expenses, said Barry Ward, agricultural economist at The Ohio State University.

“Farmers need to reevaluate all of their inputs in general, and focus on those things that give a clear ROI (return on investment) when corn is bringing $3.50 to $4 per bushel,” said Ward, who works for Ohio State University Extension, the outreach arm of the College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences.

Ward’s nine strategies:

1. Reevaluate crop production inputs such as prophylactic fungicide applications and specialty fertility products.
2. Forgo phosphorus and potassium fertilizer, if soil tests show there’s enough in the ground for the coming crop.
3. Review and adjust nitrogen rates and application timing.
4. Re-evaluate seed technology. “Seeds with fewer GMO traits are usually less expensive,” Ward said. “But this will require more management time — you may have more weed pressure, more insect pressure. You need to weigh the pros and cons — and if you’ve done some on-farm evaluation, you will know what works and is worth the investment.”
5. Eliminate excess equipment and re-evaluate equipment sizing. “The secondary markets are soft, so it’s not the best time to sell excess equipment. If there is a true need for equipment, this would be the time to buy,” he said.
6. Renegotiate cash leases. “The economics of the past three years have cried for a lowering of cash leases, but they have held up because of equity positions on behalf of farmers and landowners’ property taxes,” Ward said. “Landowners need to understand that margins have declined and lease prices need to come down.”
7. Consider more do-it-yourself repair and services, including spraying, soil sampling and equipment repair.
8. Evaluate farm yield ratios with price ratios when determining crop mix.
9. Re-examine family living expenses. “It’s not easy to do,” Ward said, “but family living expenses need to ratchet back to pre-2006 levels.” According to Illinois Farm Business Farm Management data, family expenses were $85 per acre in 2006, compared with $110 per acre in 2015.

Source: Ohio State University

Preventing Digital Dermatitis (DD) infection pre-calving and minimising body condition score loss post-calving are a must to ensure optimum foot health in an animal’s first lactation and beyond.

Speaking at a recent AHDB Dairy Calf to Calving (C2C) meeting at Blackmarsh Farm, Sherborne, AHDB Dairy’s dairy senior scientist, Jenny Gibbons said now was a good time to think about controlling DD over the winter housing period.

She explained: “Digital Dermatitis is a painful condition and if you’ve got it in your heifers, you’ve got to control it. The stress of calving means that it will get worse and the heifers can be an infection pressure for the rest of the milking herd. A University of Wisconsin study found that heifers that calved in with DD were also 55% less likely to conceive to first service and produced 334kg less milk in the first 305 days of lactation.”

To control DD, Dr Gibbons recommended implementing a control program for in-calf heifers, which focused on picking up the early signs of the disease.

“Before a control program can be implemented, a reliable method of detecting DD in heifers is needed. Heifers affected with DD can easily be spotted by the way they behave. For example, they walk “on their toes” to take weight of their heel,” she added.

Dr Gibbons advised walking through in-calf heifers and visually assessing for heel lesions. Feet with early signs of the disease should then be cleaned, dried and treated with a topical spray. Infection pressure should also be reduced by minimising contact with slurry, by making sure stocking rates are correct to prevent slurry pooling.

“If you’ve got signs of Digital Dermatitis in the heifer, the most effective way to prevent new lesions is to run the heifers through a footbath. But make sure it’s deep enough to cover the whole hoof and clean enough so that the disinfectant is effective,” she explained.

As part of the C2C initiative, farmer meeting are being run on various host farms across the country with the aim of bringing the latest research and best practice to farmers, improving calf survival and increasing the number of heifers making it into first lactation. The growth, health and nutrition of 10 heifers on each of 13 host farms are also being monitored every three months.

At the recent event in Dorset, Dr Gibbons also emphasised the importance of minimising body condition score loss in both cows and heifers post-calving. This is essential, as a Nottingham University study found that animals that lost back fat post-calving or had low back fat thickness, were more likely to develop sole ulcers or sole haemorrhages. This was due to the fact these cows also lost fat in the ‘fat pad’ or digital cushion in the foot, which acts as a protective layer under the pedal bone.

Dr Gibbons explained: “At calving, ligaments in the foot relax so there is potential for the pedal bone to sink and cause pinching or bruising, which can later develop into sole ulcers or bruising. At the same time, when a heifer calves, she is only 90% of mature body weight so the fat pad is not fully formed anyway, so there is increased risk.”

To limit the risk of lameness, focus should be placed on minimising body condition loss and social stress around calving. Where a separate heifer group is not being used, this could involve moving heifers in groups of twos or threes at the end of the day when things are quieter. This will give her time to find a place to eat and lie. Plenty of feed space is also vital to drive feed intakes.

Source: AHDB Dairy

Let’s face it – hiring a new team member can be an exhausting process. Spending time sorting through candidates to identify real talent vs. “half-hearted” talent is a tough process. Many managers have had to “settle” on a slightly-less-than-desired candidate due to time pressures or lack of solid candidates. So, there is never a guarantee that you will not end up getting burned after hiring a new employee.

As leaders, we should always make it a priority to keep quality talent along the journey. But sometimes, for various reasons, good employees quit and if you are not paying attention, these situations can surprise you and leave you in a pinch.

By being aware of these four warning signs, you can spot employees who are considering a departure before they have made up their minds. 

Personal Crises
Employees have personal lives too, and leaders should never forget that fact. If something happens in one aspect of their lives, chances are it’s going to affect another aspect of their life. For example, if an employee is going through a nasty divorce, lost a loved one recently, or is suffering from a health issue, these events will often cause one to rethink priorities which could result in evaluating career options. Usually, effective leaders can spot this change within employees on a personal level with their staff. Asking them how they are doing and showing genuine empathy with them in times of need will go a long way.

Blowing through Leave Time
If your employee is using an excessive amount of sick, vacation, or personal time at the beginning of the year, chances are they are doing so to get rid of it before they quit. These days do not come cheap, so using them all within a short time frame does not really make sense – unless they have a good reason. Often, such employees have already made up their decision to leave, so there’s little you can do to stop them. Still, it’s worth a try if you want to keep them.

Disengaged Attitude/Work Ethic
Disengaged staff usually “give up” on their job and it shows in many ways, but you will especially notice it in their attitudes and work ethic. For example, such employees will suddenly stop providing suggested improvements, be noticeably less chipper than usual, or suddenly become much less engaging with other team members and with you as the leader. Often such behavior is brought on by personal stress and can be a result of change within the company. An idea to consider here is a change of the employee’s role or responsibilities – especially if you think you can reinvigorate their commitment to the organization.

Physically or Verbally Expressing Unhappiness
If employees are telling you and/or others how unhappy they are at work, chances are they are nearly out the door. As such feelings of unhappiness grow, they get difficult to hide. These people express their feelings in the break room or on social media, giving you, as the leader, a chance to address the situation and explore ways to resolve matters.

There is always a way to keep quality talent and agree on a path forward. However, if the leader discerns that an employee has already mentally “checked out,” asking them to leave sooner rather than later could be the best option – for everyone.

Source: Cattle Network

Agriculture is at the start of a digital revolution, and to advance it will need to embrace and understand the increasing amount of data that is being collected, writes Chris Harris.

Speaking at the National Farm Management Conference in London, organised by the Institute of Agricultural Management, Mark Suthern, the head of agriculture at Barclays, said that the industry in the UK is facing a number of head winds, including the challenges of exchange rates, farm gate prices, customer confidence and political and public relations campaigns including the current debate about the exit of the EU from the EU.

However, he said that the modern farmer is having to adopt skills of a computer scientist and digital engineer and biotechnology, advances in biometrics and powerful computers play an increasingly more important role in farming.

“The farmer needs to understand the data,” Mr Suthern said.

He added that to become world class, farming needs to adopt a proactive focus and it needs to bring new people into the sector.

And he called on the UK farming sector to communicate to the public to tell consumers about the important role it plays in the economy.

“We need to explain the importance of agriculture to the UK economy and the importance of food to the UK economy,” Mr Suthern said.

Jane King, the chief executive of the Agricultural and Horticultural Development Board said that a world class farming industry needs to be inspired by and competing with the best.

This she said, was the vision of the AHDB and she called on the industry to focus on what the UK farming industry’s competitors are doing and doing well to improve its own competitiveness.

She said the aim of the AHDB is to make British agriculture more competitive and resilient and to accelerate innovation and productivity through research and knowledge exchange.

She said the AHDB needs to help the industry to understand and deliver what consumers will trust and buy both at home and internationally.

Mrs King said that this will mean adapting and also developing new products.

She added that UK agriculture is also facing a consumption challenge.

“The UK consumer base is growing, which is exciting for us,” she said.

However, Mrs King told the conference that while the consumer base is growing eating patterns for many core products, except poultry are declining and she said that consumer behaviour is shaping the retail landscape, in particular through top up shopping.

She added that the rising middle class both in Europe and in Asia presents an opportunity for UK agriculture and Brexit will see a more liberal trading environment.

“We should be excited by the opportunity. We need to be ready and we need to be fitter quicker,” she said.

Agricultural productivity needs to keep pace with the competition, and while there
will be more consolidation in the industry and the supply chain will change, there will be a need for more technology skills to grow the opportunities that will be presented.

She told the conference that through benchmarking and having access to the best science and sharing knowledge UK agriculture will be able to take advantage of the opportunities on offer.

However, she added that the best farmers were concentrating on the details and making marginal improvements over a wide spectrum.

“It is attainable and reachable for everyday farmers. It’s about marginal gain,” she said.

Richard Tiffin, the chief scientific officer at Agrimetrics and professor of applied economics at Reading University showed how new developments are staring to make more and more data available, understandable and useful to the agricultural sector.

He said that a new data platform is being developed by the Agrimetrics – an Agritech Centre of Excellence founded by the University of Reading, Rothamsted Research and NIAB, to help farmers produce food more efficiently and to better respond to food consumers changing needs.

Prof Tiffin, said: “The food system is facing unprecedented challenges as a result of demographic and climate change.

“At the same time, in some cases, the system’s foundations – its primary producers are under increasing economic pressure.

“Many of these challenges can be characterised as being able to better meet the demands of consumers for more, increasingly healthy food.

“However, the growing complexity of the food system means that it is often hard for farmers to understand the demands of the ultimate consumer as well as making the system more vulnerable to unexpected shocks.

“Agrimetrics is building a data platform that will make it easier to access and use data. In this way data can become the currency which enhances knowledge of the system we are all part of. Farmers can be reconnected to consumers, they’ll be able to better meet their needs and procure a larger share of the value in food.”

Martin Dyke, the business development director at AB Agri and John McCurdy the company‘s head of Agri Data Services said that the UK agricultural food supply chains will need to improve their performance to simply stand still and by connecting supply chains from origin, supplier, producer, processor to consumer will help unlock duplicated and non-value adding costs while helping target innovation investment.

They said that leveraging data and technology can accelerate the alignment and the connections between individual parts of the supply chain and help realise these benefits.

However, a threat is being posed by the blind pursuit of Big Data with no real vision for how this might be practically used and applied on farm.

They said that more attention should be given to the interpretation of data to create real insight; the use of this insight to enable smarter decision making and perhaps most importantly, the application and implementation of appropriate actions taken on farm.

“The bottom line – if it’s too time consuming or complicated it won’t get used; there needs to be some alignment in the supply chain between the value delivered by these technologies and the cost of implementation,” said Mr Dyke.

Mr McCurdy added: “If you can’t act on what the data is telling us, then it is useless.”

He said there are plenty of technology and data capture systems but they need to be able to talk to each other to profit the farmer.

Ed Salt, the managing director at Delamere Dairy told the conference that the success of his company has come through investing in people and building a map to attain the “big goals”.

He said it is essential to develop a culture where people can excel and he said for his company management had been a question of stewardship rather than leadership to ensure that everyone who works for the company is profitable.

He said that if a market is attractive, “be prepared for competition” and he added that entrepreneurial companies should not be afraid of changing what most people believe is the norm.

The importance of the role and personality pf the manager to move the modern agricultural business forward was also emphasised by Ekkehard Herrmann, a farmer and manager of co-op farms in eastern Germany and Neil Adams, Agri-food business consultant at Promar International.

Mr Adams said: “There’s more to managing a successful dairy business than monitoring cash flows, planning the breeding strategy and winter feeding regime.

“Interpersonal sensitivity, personal flexibility and emotional resilience are equally important according to a recent Promar study of 65 producers in England and Wales that focused on leadership and leader capabilities within their dairy farming businesses and the influence of their emotional intelligence.

“It concluded that those with the highest level of emotional and social competence made £739 profit per cow compared with £366 for the average and those in the lowest group, £117.

“Those more likely to run more profitable farms were farmers with staff or family teams who had a people oriented personal style combined with a decisive command role.”

Source: The Pig Site

Milking robots at a New South Wales Mid North Coast dairy are contributing to an increase in milk production of 25 per cent over the last 12 months, according to Manning Valley dairy farmer Adrian Drury.

But as well as improved efficiencies and a happier healthier herd, the innovative milking technology has delivered a new dilemma facing manufacturers across the board.

Who will train the technicians to program and service the growing number of automated technologies?

“It’s revolutionised the way we do farming, but with that, it’s meant that we need a different breed of worker,” Mr Drury said.

Designers of electrical trades courses from the Newcastle campus of TAFE NSW are working on a solution to the problem, common across the manufacturing sector.

However, it is good news for apprentices who are getting exposure to real world problems and cutting edge technology.

Robotic dairy is like ‘sophisticated traffic control system’

On the surface, Drury Farm looks like any other — a herd of 430 milking cows heading to the milking shed, nestled in the Manning Valley.

But robots built by Sweden’s DeLaval are revolutionising milk production, effectively enabling the dairy cows to turn up at any time of the day or night for milking.

Many of the components of the dairy are familiar: cows are still identified by numbered ear tags, and suction cups attached to a cow’s teats convey milk to large temperature-controlled vats, awaiting collection by milk tankers.

But, at the Drury’s farm, an automated system works like a sophisticated traffic control system.

It decides whether to allow a cow into the dairy for milking or send it back out to pastures, based on the cow’s milking permissions, set by the farmer.

Pointing to a pie chart on a computer display, Mr Drury demonstrated access to real-time data, which helped farm workers plan their day strategically.

“The red cows are the cows that need attention in the next couple of hours,” he said.

“The green portion is the dry cows, and the yellow is the number of cows that need to be milked in the next six hours.”

He said other benefits of the system were real-time snapshots about the herd status, manual selection of cows for express lane milking, a holding function for specific cows at the dairy after milking, and an alert delivery and data via mobile devices.

“When there’s a problem with the cow, it sends us that signal — to our mobile phones,” Mr Drury said.

With a price tag of around $2 million, which Mr Drury said ws comparable to building a traditional rotary-style dairy, the Drury’s system is one of an estimated 50 in operation around Australia.

TAFE NSW adapting to industry demand

Head teacher of electronics and advanced manufacturing at TAFE NSW Newcastle campus David Leask said the dairy industry’s shift towards automation mirrored a wider shift in manufacturing and technology.

“We have students in class that are working for a diverse range of companies, from flight simulator maintenance to over-the-horizon radar and big data analytics companies,” Mr Leask said.

“And the common theme for all of those companies is electronics. What we’re seeing is a dramatic shift away from consumer electronics and a huge influx of people in industrial control systems.”

TAFE NSW is adapting to industry demand for specialised knowledge by pulling certain skill sets from certain traditional qualifications.

Mr Leask said they were: “piecing together a beautiful mix of skill sets from different areas to create outcomes specific to the needs of people”, such as Mr Drury.

Clinton Burgess, apprenticed as an electrical engineer to Hunter-based company Dexata with contracts with defence and which is working on big data analytics, is applying field learning to his training.

“It was actually quite amazing to see it all working. We’ve seen it all in theory but actually, out here in a real world operation, I was gobsmacked to see it all work,” Mr Burgess said.
Conrad Neilands, apprenticed to Novecom, which manufactures and maintains dust and noise monitoring systems, loves the real world exposure he is getting to cutting edge technology.

“It was really amazing to see the cupping machine in action,” he said.

“It’s really incredible, the way it scans and sees the teat, and the way it can adapt to the way the cow is moving in real time is quite amazing.”

Cows ‘rewarded in the paddock’

Mr Drury said the robot milking system had resulted in “a really positive impact on the yield of the cows”.

“The initial stages were a bit touch and go but certainly we’ve seen that once the cows [had learned] they could be rewarded in the paddock,” he said.

“If she’s giving a reasonable a level of production, she can actually turn up to have a feed and that machine will automatically reward her.”

Mr Drury said the incentive-based system and computer program was “there to encourage that to happen”, but farmers still needed to be on the farm every day, and willing to work directly with the cattle.

After two years working with the robotic dairy, the Drurys are still fine-tuning the automated system.

“We certainly went through a few hurdles to start with, but now we’re seeing a 20 to 25 per cent increase in production on where we were last year,” Mr Drury said.

“So, it’s really starting to kick some goals now.”

Mr Drury’s daughter Tiffany Sagar said the robotic dairy gave workers “more time to focus on the herd as individual cows, whereas, with the old systems, we’d only see them for three hours”.

“You’re actually watching the cows behaviour a lot better so, on a daily basis, we’ve got that hands-on contact with the cows as well,” she said.

Source: ABC

Daily observation helps animal owners properly monitor their animal’s health and wellbeing.

One of the most overlooked practices among animal owners is daily observation. Daily observation will help owners properly monitor their animal’s health and wellbeing. We often get caught up in the routine of making sure our animals have feed and water and forget to examine some other equally important things that are happening in our barns.

First, know the signs and symptoms of a sick animal as they are key in monitoring the animal’s overall health. Animal owners develop a baseline knowledge for each animal and how they act and react during interactions. Mentally taking note of a few things can help you be aware of how your animal may be feeling. Michigan State University Extension suggests noting the following observations:

Are your animals’ eyes bright?
Is your animal alert?
Is your animal up and moving around with normal locomotion or laying down?
Is there anything that seems abnormal in your animal’s behavior that would make you question if they are feeling normal?
Second, inspect the animal thoroughly daily for cuts, abrasions, rashes, fungus and external parasites. It is important to make it a daily habit to individually inspect each animal for any injuries. It is a skill that may take time to develop, but after it has become part of a routine, you will find the time it takes decreases. With tame animals, it is always helpful to have an individual interaction with them where you can run your hands over their top lines, down their legs and under their bellies. This will allow you to have a good look at the animals’ body up close. During this time, you can address any issues such as an unexplained lameness, cut or abrasion.

It is essential to monitor daily intake of water and feed. Typically, an animal losing its appetite and becoming lethargic is the first symptom of illness and a cue for owners to contact their veterinarian. When you are aware of what the animal or herd normally consumes, this will give you clues of additional body characteristics to look for when you are inspecting the animal. For example, if you observe the water tank is not as empty as it typically is at evening or morning chore time, indicating animals aren’t drinking appropriately, you can check each animal for classic signs of dehydration such as sunken sides and poor capillary refill.

Daily observation of our animals is the most important, yet most overlooked, task animal owners can do to help keep their stock healthy.

Source: MSU Extension

Dairy farmers can now access the online version of AHDB Dairy’s heifer rearing cost calculator to work out how much it is costing to rear heifers on their specific farm.

Speaking at a recent Calf to Calving event, Dorset, AHDB Dairy’s dairy senior scientist Dr Jenny Gibbons said farmers had much to gain from calculating costs for their farm, particularly as a recent Royal Veterinary College and AHDB study revealed that rearing costs varied anywhere from an average of £1,800/heifer, up to £3,000/heifer.

The calculator splits out the rearing period into three stages: birth to weaning, weaning to conception and conception to calving.

Farmers can then input various parameters such as target age at first calving, average heifer first lactation yields, forage growing inputs, forage quality and milk and concentrate use.

A cost for each stage and a total cost is then calculated.

Dr Gibbons said: “The more informed you are, the better business decisions you can make and this calculator enables you to work out your costs, allowing you to focus on specific areas where you can make savings.”

The emphasis was placed on achieving the following growth rates:

• Double birth weight at weaning.
• Target an average daily live weight gains from birth to conception of 800-900g/day.
• Heifers should be 50 per cent of mature cow body weight by 12 months.
• Calve down at 90 per cent of mature body weight at 24 months.

Dr Gibbons noted that good husbandry and nutrition were key to hitting these targets, which could potentially bring significant cost savings if adhered to.

In the future, AHDB is aiming to use the calculator as a benchmarking tool as part of AHDB Dairy’s Calf to Calving initiative.

Source: FG Insight

The next year will be difficult for milk producers as the cuts and efficiencies made during the dairy crisis affect technical and financial performance, according to agri-consultant, Promar.

The outlook came following its release of annual farm business accounts results for the year ending March 2016, in which profits in their sample were down 48.8% on the previous period.

Despite suffering the worst dairy conditions for 30 years, the UK is yet to see a mass exodus of dairy farmers, with numbers shrinking just 1.6% over the past 12 months.

However, the consultants said some producers could be waiting for notice periods or contracts to run out, as well as the end of the EU milk reduction scheme before leaving the industry in 2017.

Efficiency savings, particularly lower calf numbers and retained youngstock made during the previous dairy cycle beginning in March 2014, would start to tell by the end of next year, said Promar.

Sample figures show that increases to youngstock in relation to herd size slowed over the last two cycles and genetic progress may have slowed due to reducing the use of AI to reduce costs.

Although farmgate milk prices rose by 12.95% in the three months from June 2016, the reduction in national herd size, (down 2% between July 2015 and July 2016) and a fall in UK milk production, down 8.05% over the same period, meant producers wouldn’t be able to simply turn the taps back on moving into 2017.

Capital investment in the year to March 2016, which restricted the ability for herds to pick up production swiftly.

Savings struggle
These large savings could not continue indefinitely, said farm consultancy manager at Promar, Nigel Davies.

“These big cuts can be sustained for a few years but they can’t be put off forever. In the next two to three years producers will be forced to address these costs.”

Mr Davies said that current milk price increases would not be enough on their own to lead to a recovery in farm finances.

Brighter future
“With evidence of poorer quality forages and increasing feed prices, dairy margins will probably only hold in this year, but with prospects improving in the next financial year.”

Those who weathered the recent crisis and are most equipped moving into 2017 are producers who had reacted to the economic environment, pursued technical efficiencies and taken tough decisions, said Mr Davies.

“The crisis has left us with far more efficient dairy sector, with lots of producers making the most of forage and minimising bought in feed.”

“The best will plan ahead not just on the basis of this year’s expectations, but also the year beyond and the associated twists and turns of volatility.”

Source: Farmers Weekly

We’ve all heard the statement, “genetics don’t matter without first creating a pregnancy.”

This insightful truth has shifted our global breeding strategy to a stronger focus on fertility. When improved fertility is one of your ultimate goals, you can use genetics to help get you there – both now and into the future.

Get more pregnancies now

If you’re looking for a fertility advantage on inseminations today, sire fertility rankings are where you’ll want to focus. Alta’s ConceptPlus evaluation ranks each sire on his ability to get cows pregnant. Sires with the high fertility ConceptPlus status will give you a 3%-4% conception rate advantage over the average service sire.

Why should you trust Alta’s ConceptPlus rankings? They are based on real pregnancy check results from herds in the US, Canada and Germany. The evaluation also maintains accuracy by accounting for factors like number of times bred, month/season, technician and breeding code effects.

If you’re more familiar with sire conception rate (SCR), keep in mind that Alta’s ConceptPlus evaluation served as a basis for SCR, and the table below compares what’s included in Alta’s ConceptPlus evaluation and SCR.

Comparing the different factors accounted for within Sire Conception Rate and Alta’s ConceptPlus sire fertility evaluations.

You can see that both fertility evaluations include a great deal of factors and information, but ConceptPlus takes it a few steps further for greater accuracy. If improved fertility is your current goal, ConceptPlus sires will provide that boost to improve your herd’s conception rates. But it doesn’t stop there.

Create more fertile cows for the future

While sire fertility selection can get you more pregnancies now, it takes genetic selection for female fertility to ensure your herd’s reproduction continues to improve.

Daughter pregnancy rate (DPR), heifer conception rate (HCR) and cow conception rate (CCR) all provide a genetic basis for creating more fertile females. Emphasizing one, or any combination, of these traits within your customized genetic plan means you are breeding a next generation of cows with a greater ability to conceive.

Daughter pregnancy rate is defined as the number of non-pregnant cows that become pregnant within each 21-day period. When a sire has a DPR of 1.0, it means that his daughters are 1% more likely than the average herdmate to become pregnant in a given 21-day window. And each added point of DPR equates to 4 fewer days open.

When referring to HCR and CCR, these traits are defined respectively as a virgin heifer or lactating cow’s ability to conceive. For each of these traits, when a sire has a value of 1.0, it means that his daughters are 1% more likely to conceive than daughters of a sire with an HCR or CCR of 0.0.

While DPR is a slightly different calculation than HCR or CCR, all three are a way to measure the fertility of the female herself.

Improve fertility results – now and into the future

So if you’re looking to improve fertility and reproduction in your herd, take these steps for best results:

1. Improve conception rates now by using sires with the high fertility ConceptPlus ranking to get a 3-4% boost on current breedings.

2. Improve fertility for the future of your herd by including DPR and/or HCR and CCR in your customized genetic plan to create a next generation of more fertile females.

Source: AltaGenetics

We know that antibiotics are those miracle drugs Alexander Fleming stumbled upon in the 1920’s when his lab was left untidy. Since that happy accident, scientists have identified additional naturally-occurring antibiotics and developed synthetic drugs to add to our arsenal to combat bacterial infections.

So we’ve had bacteria, through their need to survive, learning how to develop resistance to naturally occurring antibiotics in the environment for eons; long before we started purposefully adding more antibiotics to the mix. So though we need antibiotics, it would be really nice if we could find ways to rely on them less.

How about preventing disease to start? Preventing disease could take the form of finding ways to enhance the immune system or identifying better strategies to target animals at risk, such as improving vaccines. We can also look for other types of treatments to address disease.

That’s just what the scientists at USDA’s Agricultural Research Service (ARS) and National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) do. ARS conducts innovative research and NIFA awards grant funds to ensure that groundbreaking discoveries in agriculture-related sciences and technologies reach the people who can put them into practice. For example:

• How can we improve immunity?
  • We could enhance a pig’s immune response during times of peak disease incidence. ARS scientists are evaluating the use of immune-derived substances that supplement animals’ innate defense mechanisms.
  • NK-lysin is an antimicrobial peptide/protein that is an important part of the inborn immune system. A NIFA Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) – funded study, found these proteins can kill both Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria.

• How can we make the bacteria sick like they make us sick? How about viruses that infect the bacteria? ARS researchers are exploring the use of destructive enzymes from viruses that infect bacteria such as those causing udder infections in dairy cattle, thereby reducing the use of antibiotics in dairy cattle.

• Haven’t vaccines been around forever? What more can we learn?
  • We still struggle with understanding all of the ways we can enhance an animal’s adaptive immune response to a vaccine so that its ability to fight disease improves. ARS scientists are improving their understanding of stimulating multiple arms of the immune system to increase efficacy, safety, and cost-effectiveness.
  • And why stop at conventional vaccines? Why not nanovaccines? NIFA is funding University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers to evaluate nanoparticles to fight respiratory disease in poultry where there is no effective vaccine because of the many strains of circulating virus. Success could serve as a model for addressing other animal diseases.

• What else can we do to improve preventive management practices beyond vaccine protocols? Well, NIFA asked the country’s scientists just that question. As part of a five-year AFRI Food Security Challenge award initiated in 2013, scientists focus on extension-driven solutions to reduce mastitis on Southeast U.S. dairy farms, thus reducing the need for antibiotics and improving the quality of milk.

As USDA scientists continue to work with their partners to look for ways to preserve the efficacy of medically important antibiotics that address the most critical needs for human and animal health with a focus on public health outcomes, USDA scientists look forward to working with their partners to concurrently find ways, through sound science, to address agricultural productivity, sustainability, and resilience.

Source: USDA

Alvin and Judith Reid have been dairy farmers since 1978, starting off as sharemilkers. Today they own one of New Zealand’s few robotic dairy operations.

A farmer runs his dairy operation several hundred kilometres away with the aid of technology.

It’s the dead of night and Alvin Reid sits in his office, lit up by a flat screen television. A cow wanders across the screen, pauses to sniff the air, before sauntering into a milking bail. Reid is in Wanaka and the cow is on his Riverholme Farm at Pleasant Point, 270 kilometres away.

Reid is doing his “shift” on the 125-hectare robotic dairy farm. He shares the work with two other staff and chooses to do this via the internet from his new Central Otago home. Technology, which Reid revels in, has allowed him to work remotely.

“I have always been interested in technology,” he says. “I’ve had a fascination with electronics since the 1980s when I bought my first computer.”

Tony Benny/FairfaxNZ.

Cows run the farm now, says Alvin Reid.

 Riverholme Farm was converted from a run-off block and opened as a robotic dairy farm in 2013. It is now in its fourth season of milking and third full calving.

Alvin Reid is content to manage his shifts from his computer in Wanaka.

It’s been a steep learning curve to reach this stage, Reid says. Training the cow’s to milk voluntarily has required time and patience. Never will a motorbike chase these cows up a lane, he adds. 

“Changing our mindset from a conventional farming system to a voluntary milking system (VMS) was the hardest thing,” Reid says.

John Bisset

A DeLaval milking bail. There are six of them in the Reid’s robotic operation.

“It’s been a huge change of attitude; to be honest it’s more about changing the farmer than the cow.”

 

About six weeks passed before the cows got the hang of milking themselves. At the time Reid slept in the shed until the cows were settled. By day 66 every cow was voluntarily moving from the paddock and into the shed for milking by a robot.

Reid and wife Judith have been dairy farming since 1978 and began share milking before buying their first farm at Winchester. Today they own Riverholme Farm plus have shares in five others, three of which are operated by their children.

What makes the Riverholme Farm so special is that the 480 cows graze year round, not in dairy barns, but on open pasture. They walk up to three kilometres a day to get themselves to one of the six DeLaval robotic milkers and at  peak lactation will milk more than twice a day.

“New Zealand’s strength is in its pastoral farming. Our feeding system is no different than other farms – 80 per cent pasture,” Reid says.

Feeding costs are kept extremely low with this system and robotic milking can be introduced without adding to pasture management or feeding costs. 

Reid says the drop in labour costs and animal health costs are balanced out with the higher capital investment. However, he believes the potential in increased cow longevity, proactive farm management and labour retention makes the system worthwhile.

Robotic technology starts at the gate with each animal ear tagged. The tag sends a signal to the central computer that stores information on each cow’s milk production flow. The computer’s memory then guides the animal through a series of gates to milk or graze.

The DeLaval VMS robot comes with a “herd management system” (HMS). This collates a comprehensive record for each cow and allows Reid and his staff to follow each cow’s milking performance and milk quality.

The herd management technology also keeps track of the cow’s milk production and number of visits to the VMS. The optimal time for the next visit is automatically calculated, based on the time elapsed since the previous milking and the amount of milk expected.

“The HMS logs milk quality for each cow and sends alarms if threshold levels have been breached,” Reid says. “It alerts the VMS which automatically diverts abnormal milk and alerts staff via mobile phone and computer.”

Cow traffic at the milking machines is controlled by a smart selection gate. Reid says this helps to get more milkings per cow per day, more regular milking intervals and high feed intake. Traffic is greatest from midday until 7pm and tails off as the night goes on.

“Eventually I don’t want people here,” Reid says. “Most days between 7pm and 5am there is no staff here. The plan is to get exceptional reporting systems in place and if the farm is running the way it should I don’t want to know about it. But if something is wrong I want to know about it straight away.

“When I get a text I bring up the robots on the screen. If the text is about teat cup grip then I bring up the robot and can see the teat cup hanging; from my computer, I can control the robot and fix it.” 

The robotic farm project has cost Reid about $2.5 million and a rotary milking shed would have cost less. But they will get that back, he says.

“The milking shed probably cost $350,000 – $400,000 above the cost of a conventional 50 bail rotary shed. But it uses only 2.5 labour units compared with a rotary’s three labour units. A conventional farm of the same size would take 3.5 staff.”

 Animal health costs have dropped. Despite extensive walking, there has been a decrease in cow lameness and Reid expects cow longevity will improve to perhaps an extra lactation because of the new system. Cows  have less mastitis and produce more milk with less staff.

“We have about 4.5 lactations per cow and we think we will be able to extend that to about 5.5 lactations, time will tell.” 

Well acquainted with the technology now, he does not believe the system is especially difficult to operate.

“You don’t have to be a computer whiz,” he says.

But he thinks its widespread adoption will take time.

“Will it become mainstream? Probably not. Will all farmers want to handle this sort of technology? Probably not.

“But our cows are back to being individuals, not a herd. Our cows run the farm now, not us.”

Source: Stuff

Animal and agronomic research has provided many tools and practices over the past decades that have assisted producers in doing their job better and easier. A direct transfer of the results to real world does not always equate to the same positive results. It is easy to get caught up on the potential benefits conveyed from research in either increased milk production, improved health, higher crop yields, better fiber digestibility and the list could go on. There are several key factors that come into play when determining how much a farm may benefit from a new product or management practice.

Production Perspective

The words research and control are synonymous. In animal research best management practices are implemented. Typically animal research projects are conducted using greater than lactation one animals that are similar days in milk; dry matter intake is monitored daily; many people (students) are feeding and handling the animals; feed and forage quality is consistent; and projects are limited in their duration (i.e. 3 months). Almost all of these conditions do not happen on a real dairy operation. Even when on-farm trials are conducted they utilize very well managed farms and are closely monitoring performance to pick up differences.

Agronomic research is conducted using plots that are usually on small acreage. Depending on what is being evaluated best management practices are implemented to control weeds and pests. However, agronomic research is at the mercy of weather conditions and thus can have a significant effect on the outcome. Extrapolating results relies heavily on the correct equipment being used, soil conditions, soil types, temperature, moisture, and application of fertilizer and chemicals. It is not surprising that incorporating research practices may not transfer directly to the farm’s operation without some adjustments.

A positive research result does not equate to a financial positive. Historically the one main component missing from animal and agronomic research is the economic component. Recently researchers have begun examining income over feed cost affects between treatments or partial budgets for various cropping strategies. However, the bottom line is there are interactions at the farm level that only a whole farm analysis can detect. This is the best approach for realizing the benefits (or not) of a new product or management practice. This is the missing link when transferring research to real world application.

Poor management will trump positive results with any new product, additive, or practice most every time. If a dairy operation does not have a solid foundation regarding forage quality, cow comfort, and best management practices then the product or practice being utilized may not be able to overcome those obstacles. To truly observe the benefits cows and crops should be monitored to document that the desired outcome is really occurring. Based on the dairy’s breakeven cost of production, how is the product or practice measuring up? Rarely is there any follow-up to evaluate the effectiveness of the new practice or product. Also, an immediate response does not always occur, in some cases the benefits are realized over a certain period of time. Depending on the farm’s situation it may be necessary to make adjustments in protocols to reap the true effectiveness of the product or practice.

The bottom line is not every research result will work on every farm operation. Make sure good management practices are in place, monitor the animals or crops to demonstrate the product or practice is working and evaluate the effects to the cash flow plan.

Action plan for incorporating a new product or management practice

Goals

Evaluate the potential benefits of any new product or practice on the cash flow plan before making a decision.

Steps

• Step 1: Investigate the research by discussing the pros and cons with the advisory team and by talking with other producers who have utilized the product or practice. Search the internet for information and reviews on how they have worked.
• Step 2: Examine a budget, such as a partial budget, to evaluate if the product or practice makes economic sense for the operation. Account for intangibles such as improved time management or animal well-being.
• Step 3: Once the decision has been made to try the product or practice, develop a plan for monitoring the cows or crops to determine its effectiveness. Make sure to document animal or crop performance prior to implementing the change.
• Step 4: Allow several weeks or months to document results.
• Step 5: At the 3 month and 6 month time point, evaluate the effects on the cash flow plan and the impact to the farm’s breakeven cost of production.

Economic perspective

Monitoring must include an economic component to determine if a management strategy is working or not. For the lactating cows income over feed costs is a good way to check that feed costs are in line for the level of milk production. Starting with July’s milk price, income over feed costs was calculated using average intake and production for the last six years from the Penn State dairy herd. The ration contained 63% forage consisting of corn silage, haylage and hay. The concentrate portion included corn grain, candy meal, sugar, canola meal, roasted soybeans, Optigen (Alltech product) and a mineral vitamin mix. All market prices were used.

Also included are the feed costs for dry cows, springing heifers, pregnant heifers and growing heifers. The rations reflect what has been fed to these animal groups at the Penn State dairy herd. All market prices were used.

Income over feed cost using standardized rations and production data from the Penn State dairy herd.

Note: October’s Penn State milk price: $17.07/cwt; feed cost/cow: $5.76; average milk production: 81 lbs.

Feed cost/non-lactating animal/day.

Source: PennState Extension

Because interest rates remain low and farm debt isn’t highly leveraged, today’s low commodity prices don’t mean the farm economy is headed toward a debt crisis like in the 1980s, a nationally recognized authority on agriculture and lending told the National Agricultural Bankers Conference in Indianapolis Monday.

“If we don’t get rampant inflation and we don’t get skyrocketing interest rates, this is just going to be a speed bump and adjustment,” said Jason Henderson, associate dean and head of Extension at Purdue University. Before taking that job, Henderson led the Omaha branch of the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank, where the agricultural economist tracked the agricultural and rural economy.

Henderson said farmers currently are in a liquidity crisis and that those with enough collateral will be able to weather low prices. Henderson doesn’t expect farm income to rebound much through 2018 or 2019, which will be difficult for younger farmers without equity, as well as main street business in small towns as farmers reduce personal spending.

Which cows in your herd are making you money and who is losing you money? Every year, the cow-calf producer needs to critically evaluate each animal in the herd and decide if she is paying her upkeep.

Open cows (those that are not pregnant) at the end of breeding season obviously are the top of the cull list. With variable costs running $400-$500 per year per head and an additional $100-$300 in fixed costs, keeping open cows is a financial black hole. Beyond pregnancy status, what other variables are important to evaluate? Structural soundness, body condition score, age, performance, and disposition are vital components in developing a culling order specifically for your farm. This culling order is exceptionally important during times of drought or a year with marginal hay production as you may have to cull deeper to manage through a difficult season. To begin, it is best to think about who in the herd has the least chance of being productive in the long term or is farthest away from being productive. Equally important are factors such as disposition and phenotype that affect the marketability of offspring. The following is a list of factors to consider when deciding who to cull this year.

Example of a Culling Order

1. Mean Disposition
2. Open Females
3. Structurally Unsound/Chronic Condition
4. Age
5. Poor Performance-Records
6. Phenotype-color, stature
7. Replacement Heifers
8. Bred cows over 9 years of age
9. Bred Cows 3-9 years of age

• Disposition – A cow’s attitude is an important consideration in any cattle operation. Bad behavior has both a genetic component and is also learned by calves at an early age. Mean cattle are dangerous to people, damage facilities, tear up fences and make gathering and working cattle a nightmare. Remember a good cow can be protective without being dangerous and destructive.
• Pregnancy Status – A cow should produce a calf at least once a year and the sale of that calf needs to pay her way. Diagnosing a cow as “open” (not pregnant) is as simple as veterinarian palpating for pregnancy at least 40 days after breeding or removing the bull. A simple, inexpensive blood test can also be used 28 days post-breeding to determine pregnancy status. If many cows are found open at pregnancy check, work with your veterinarian to determine if reproductive disease, poor nutrition, bull infertility or inability was the cause. Remember that cows that calve late in the season have less opportunity to breed back in a controlled (for example, 90 day) breeding season. Summer heat and fescue toxicosis can be important contributors to low conception rates.
• Structural Soundness – Bad hooves or claws, lameness due to hip/knee injury, eye problems, and poor udder conformation are all examples of structural problems that adversely affect performance.  Good feet and legs are essential for weight maintenance, breeding, calving, self-defense, and raising a calf.
• Cows with chronic conditions that will not improve such as progressive weight loss, early cases of cancer eye, repeated episodes of vaginal prolapse during pregnancy, and extreme sensitivity to the effects of fescue toxicosis should be removed from the herd as soon as the calf is weaned. Cows with confirmed disease conditions such as Johnes disease, bovine lymphoma, or advanced cancer eye should not be returned to a commercial market. The most common reasons for carcass condemnation at slaughter include emaciation, lymphoma, peritonitis, cancer eye, blood poisoning, bruising, and other cancers.
• Age – Cows are considered most productive between 4-9 years of age. Look at the teeth to assess the age but evaluate them in light of diet-cows that eat gritty or sandy feeds and forages have increased tooth wear beyond their years. Cows with badly worn or missing teeth will have a hard time maintaining body condition. Older cattle die of natural causes, too.
• Poor Performance – Record keeping is an invaluable tool for evaluating performance. Readable visual tags on both the cow and calf allow you to match calf sale weights to the dams and identification of cows that did not produce a calf. Inferior genetics and poor milk production produce lightweight calves that do no grow well. An overweight cow or large framed cow with a small calf that doesn’t gain weight usually means the cow is not producing much milk. Sick baby calves may be an indication of poor quality colostrum and poor mothering ability.
• Phenotype – These are cows that do not “fit” the herd because of external features such as unusual breed, size, muscling and color. These challenges may be overcome to some degree by choice of sire to balance out the unwanted traits. Remember that buyers of commercial calves look for uniformity in color, weight, and frame in a set of calves.
• The last ones to go – Hopefully culling will never have to go this deep in your herd. Bred cows over 9 years old, replacement heifers (especially those that did not breed in the first 30 days), and bred cows 3-9 years old should be the last sold. Thin cows that conceive late in the breeding season should go first.

Since 20% of gross receipts in a typical cow-calf operation come from the sale of cull animals, pay attention to price seasonality and body condition score before sending these animals to market. Prices are highest in spring and lowest in late fall/early winter when spring born calves are weaned & culls sent to market. Adding weight and body condition to culls is an opportunity to increase profitability but can be expensive. Work with a nutritionist to come up with realistic cost projections before feeding cull cattle for a long period of time.

When it comes to making decisions on who to cull, remember to consider functionality in your environment. Is she an “easy keeper”? Does she keep flesh and condition and raise a good calf, even when feed and forage is limited? On the opposite side, does she give too much milk or is her frame size so large that you can’t keep weight on her, even when pasture is plentiful? Is her pelvis so small and tight that calving is a problem and will be a problem in her offspring?

Functionality leads to longevity and improved efficiency. By retaining more young cows in the herd, you can decrease the number of replacement heifers needed and cull cows that are only marginally profitable. Young cows also increase in value as they mature because the body weight of the cow and her calf’s weaning weight will continue to increase from 2-5 years of age. Longevity may also be improved through crossbreeding because hybrid vigor adds essentially 1.3 years of productivity or one more calf per cow.

In summary, a herd of easy-keeping, efficient cows is possible through rigorous culling and careful selection of replacements.  Match your genetics to your management and environment for maximum efficiency, longevity, and ultimately, maximum enjoyment of cattle production.

Cull Cow Language

Breakers (75-80% lean)- Highest conditioned cull cows (BCS ≥ 7), excellent dressing percentages

Boners or “boning utility” (80-85% lean)- Moderately conditioned (BCS 5-7), well-nourished commercial beef cows (usually highest price cull)

Leans (85-90%)- Lower BCS (1-4), lower dressing percentages, susceptible to bruising during transport and expect more trim loss.  Moving cows from lean to boner status can usually be done efficiently.

Source – Farms.com

“That much yield with so little feed?”

Sitting round the kitchen table, Henry Petter tells us proudly about the figures that his partner Herman van Dijk showed people at a meeting of their study club. “They were so amazed, they could barely believe it. You should have seen them. Herman told them the feed rations and the milk yield. ‘That much yield with so little feed?’, they asked in amazement.” The business produces an average of 9,500 kg of milk per cow per year, with 4.34% fat and 3.5% protein and a BSK (business standard cow) of 47.8. The feed efficiency number is between 1.55 and 1.57, while the average feed efficiency in Western Europe is 1.30. So a good number. “We are currently feeding 21.9 kg of concentrate per cow per day. We can do this because we are feeding each group twelve times per day. That is possible thanks to the automatic feeding system”, explains Henry Petter.

Diary Farm Petter now has ten years’ experience with using the Triomatic automatic feeding system. Henry Petter is one of the dairy farmers who was in from the outset, the development of the first Triomatic automatic feeding system. It was he who explained to us what he wanted, as a pioneer, and fed back his reactions to the Trioliet development team. Although he had no interest in a milking robot (the reason being: “I want to see my cows twice a day”), he saw many benefits in automated feeding. In the meantime, the benefits have turned out to be greater than he expected. Henry: “It has done more for us than we could ever have imagined. In particular, the flexibility in setting the timing is a major plus. We can now plan a few days ahead, without having to come back and check on it. And we can now make the silage ourselves instead of outsourcing it like we used to. In addition, there is now no hierarchy in the group, because there is always fresh feed available and the fixed feeding times and the high frequency of feeding is important. This means the cows are more relaxed. The calves do better than average in with the flock.”

Not more, but better
The dairy farm managed by Herman van Dijk, Henry Petter and his son, Arie, owns 250 dairy cows. The benefit of the automatic feeding system is that it can be controlled with an accuracy of two decimal places, which means you can get the best returns. Henry: “The high level of feed efficiency is of course due to a number of different factors. It is not just a question of feeding, but the whole range of costs. We try to be self-sufficient in terms of raw feeds, and we buy less phosphate-rich products. That way we can also reduce the quantity of phosphate that needs to be disposed of. This allows you to work with a high level of accuracy and you get a high yield from the way you run your whole business. We try to do not more, but better. The automatic feeding system means that you have flexibility.”

Previously, we spent two hours a day feeding, or around fourteen hours a week. “Right now, feeding only takes us about 4.5 hours per week. About 80 tonnes of raw feed is handled each week, and about 15 kg of left-over feed. What’s more, it is also possible to feed multiple groups, several times a day, so they always have fresh feed. Even preparing a small ration for three dry cows is possible. That is an important factor. The better you can treat the dry cows, the better they deliver and the less problems you get later on. At this level, the automatic feeding system is definitely competitive compared to paying someone because we now feed the dry cows twice a day instead of once every other day. That is what is best for the animals. But it is not only the cows who benefit from this. I have some hobbies myself, and now I can find some free time for them. That is also important, of course”, says Henry with a laugh.

You can also go out
The times for the feed rounds can be moved if necessary. For example, in hot weather it is useful to be able to change the feeding rounds. Herman van Dijk: “We feed more often at night during the summer. With the night-time feeding rounds the system uses the night electricity rate, so that is an added benefit. Personally, I find the flexibility really good and it soon pays for itself.” Arie Petter adds: “The biggest benefit for me is that I have more free time. You have the freedom to go out, you no longer need to live by the clock. None of us even wear a watch any more. That says plenty,” Arie laughs.

Investment
The dairy farm is depreciating the investment in the automatic feeding system over twenty years. “The investment for the Triomatic T40 automatic feeding system was around EUR 200,000. We are now halfway through this and the system can easily run for another ten years. In terms of maintenance, we have had to buy a new set of knives now and again. But if you compare that to the diesel costs of a feeder vehicle or tractor, then it comes out well.” They do not deny that it is a major investment. Henry: “We are using it to feed 250 cows. You need to look at the big picture. What do you put in and what do you get out? You have to look below the line, that is what matters. With a cost price of 0.5 cents per litre of milk (maintenance costs, depreciation and a quota of 2.5 million litres of milk), we are doing really well. As a farmer with livestock, you need to be able to think and act long term.”

Source: Trioliet

A farm management specialist says all sectors of agriculture are facing declining farm incomes.

Adam Kantrovich with Michigan State University tells Brownfield farmers need to update their balance sheets at the end of every year.  “If I can’t pay my bills and every month I’m seeing that I’m having to owe more and more money to the local feed elevators and other suppliers—it’s really time to take a serious look at my farm business and my productivity.”

He says reaching out to consultants or extension specialists can help farmers dissect how every cost of production may be adjusted.  “We really need to determine ‘How long can I hang on if it looks like for the next year or two my net worth is going to continue going backwards?’ and make some decisions.”

He says while there are some bullish indicators in the market, the downward trend in the ag economy is expected to last longer than in previous cycles.

Source: Brownfield

THE PROBLEM:
Dehydration from scours, diarrhea, or other digestive problems poses a significant threat to the health and future productivity of newborn calves, and significantly increases the expenses and labor required to care for the animals. Current products cannot help calves retain fluids quickly enough to avoid severe dehydration—the ultimate goal in managing scours.

THE SOLUTION:

Neonorm Calf is a new product to help dairies and calf farms proactively retain fluid in calves—helping the animals avoid debilitating, dangerous levels of dehydration.
Calves that avoid severe dehydration before it occurs are better equipped to fight off the infection that led to scours.
Neonorm Calf is an advanced product that operates at the cellular level to inhibit the flow of fluids into the intestines—the location where vital fluids leave the body during scours. It is not an electrolyte or a nutritional supplement.

A Clinically Proven Solution
A study evaluating the effect of Neonorm Calf on diarrhea in newborn calves was published in Journal of Dairy Science, the official, peer-reviewed journal of the American Dairy Science Association, in 20151. The study was conducted by researchers from Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine.

The study results suggest that Neonorm Calf can significantly increase the fecal dry matter of neonatal calves with experimentally-induced enterotoxigenic E. coli diarrhea. Higher fecal dry matter is an indication of less water loss and lower dehydration risk.

Source: Jaguar Animal Health

he brutal fact is that heritability is often misunderstood.

The traits most commonly referred to as low heritability are the health traits – Productive Life (PL), Daughter Pregnancy Rate (DPR), and Somatic Cell Score (SCS). The most common misconception is that although the predicted transmitting ability (PTA) for PL or DPR is high for particular bulls, the heritability is so low that progress will be minimal in a single generation and slow over time.

Even among those in the AI industry, heritability has been described as the probability that the resulting progeny will inherit a trait. So it’s no surprise that dairy producers push back on what benefits even exist for them by selecting for low heritability traits.

Common adverse reactions include statements like, “We will make less progress,” or “We won’t make a noticeable difference,” or “It takes so many generations to actually change those traits.”

This hesitance means it’s time to clear up the confusion on low heritability traits. To do that, we’ll take a look at what heritability actually means, and prove that the economic value of a trait is much more important than the heritability.

What is heritability?

Heritability is the proportion of the total amount of variation in a trait between groups due to genetics.

In the simplest terms, think about two cows in two different herds. How much of their milk production difference is due to genetics, and how much is due to management? It turns out that about 30 percent is due to genetics and 70 percent is due to management and environment. Therefore, milk has a heritability of 0.30.

What about pregnancy rate differences? Management and environment account for the 96 percent majority of variation between daughters, so the influence of genetics is minor at just 4 percent. Thus, DPR has a heritability of 0.04. But in spite of this, it would be wrong to conclude that DPR is insignificant as a result.

Perspective is important

When dealing with genetics, we need to remember that accuracy shows through when we evaluate within a herd. From there, we evaluate within a specific lactation group, and then within a specific time of freshening. This means that we reduce the impact of management and environmental differences in our comparison. We effectively have more control over the evaluation to better isolate the real impact that genetics makes.

Even though the overall heritability is low for a trait like DPR, within a given environment and situation where all cows are managed exactly the same, the true differences between genetic lines is much clearer.

The proof sheet & heritability

The genetic traits for all animals already take heritability into account. This means the PTA values for both the low- and high-heritability traits indicate the amount of gain or loss that can be made in a given generation. So the PTA is the progress you can expect to make with your selection. And when referencing DPR specifically, one added point of sire DPR equates to an average of four fewer days open.

Think of a herd with a 22 percent preg rate and an average of 130 days open. If this dairyman selects AltaBOWIE just because of his favorable DPR of +5.1, then we expect those AltaBOWIE daughters to have an average 27 percent pregnancy rate within his herd, and therefore, an average of 110 days open.

It isn’t just theory, either. Take this real life example from a 1,500 cow dairy with very good reproductive performance. We’ve separated out first lactation cows into quartiles by their sire’s DPR. It’s clear to see that the high DPR sires like AltaBOWIE create daughters that become pregnant more quickly than the daughters of low DPR sires.

Pregnancy rate comparison between daughters of high DPR sires and low DPR sires

The same goes for Productive Life. Despite the low heritability at less than 9%, PL can make a real, noticeable difference in your herd.

This table compares how long the daughters of the industry’s best ten PL bulls and daughters of the industry’s bottom ten PL sires will last in a given herd. You can see that a higher percentage of high PL daughters, represented by the dark blue bars, remain in a herd than their low PL counterparts. Selecting for the lowly heritable PL will certainly create healthier, longer-living cows in your herd.

Percentage of daughters remaining in herd by top 10 and bottom 10 industry sires for Productive Life

Focus on economic value

As a progressive dairy producer, don’t let confusion about heritability prevent you from using the genetic tools to make improvement in your herd. Health traits are economically important, and can have a huge economic impact on your dairy’s bottom line.

There are many traits that have a very high heritability, but no economic importance. In other words, we can make a lot of progress for these traits very quickly, but it will not make a more profitable cow.

A couple of examples are coat color and stature. Coat color has a heritability of 100 percent because it is completely controlled by genetics. Another example is stature, which has a heritability near 0.50. Even though we can make cows a lot bigger, or a lot smaller, or red in one generation, what is the economic value of that?

By comparison, the economic value of more fertile cows that last longer because of fewer metabolic problems, fewer cases of mastitis, and easier calvings is clear to see. These genetic features make a more profitable production unit for each and every farm.

Management tips for selection

When you set or reevaluate your genetic plan, take the following tips into account to maximize progress in the direction of your goals.

Define your goals
You can start by identifying the most common reasons for culling in your herd to determine the most significant health problems on your dairy. Is it reproduction, milk production, mastitis? This information gives you the basis to make breeding decisions that will have a positive impact.

Choose your tools
Health traits offer dairy producers some powerful tools to help correct for low reproduction, metabolic problems, high incidences of dystocia and the like. Identify how important each is to you, and place a proportionate emphasis on these traits when choosing the group of sires to use on your dairy.

Customize the solution
Because industry standard selection indexes put different and continually changing weights on health traits, don’t assume they reflect your individual goals and needs. Work with your Alta rep to make sure your genetic plan is customized to your situation and goals.

Source: Alta Genetics

The winter wind and snow will be blowing soon. Now is the time to consider any issues that could occur on your farm in wintertime, and be proactive to prevent costs of frozen water hoses, cords and water troughs. All of these issues which can affect your cows’ behavior, yield and your workload and efficiency.

Leah Lange, a Farm Management Support (FMS) advisor for Fitzgerald Inc., a Lely Center in eastern Iowa, recommends a good barn cleaning before winter.

In addition, make sure your rodent control plan is in place before they start eating wires.

“Rodents have been a problem on many farms this fall, so be extra vigilant in checking for problems with mice before the cold temperatures set in,” she said. “Assess whether you have already have a problem and then get bait and traps set throughout the barn.”

Below is a checklist with tips to prepare you for winter.

• If you use heaters within your robot area, test them in advance.
• If your robot area is sensitive to cold airflow, think ahead about how to stop this and what kind of materials you might need. Purchase these materials in advance.
• Typical rough or worn out cup cords are more sensitive to frost. Check your cup cords and replace them when necessary.
• Spray the cords with silicone if needed. Vaseline works well too.
• Check and calibrate the correct proportion of water and chemicals for cleaning.
• If you are using a ‘heating ribbon’ for your water supply, check its function.
• If you have insulated water pipes, visually check the insulation.
• Check that the water boiler is working properly and keeps reaching the desired temperature.
• Ask yourself whether your footbath management should be adjusted to wintertime.
• If alarms occur, act upon them promptly so the system does not shut down.
• Adjust the automatic ventilation control and put fan covers on to make sure barn curtains are in good shape.
• Chose a teat dip that has additional skin conditioners to protect the cows’ teats from little cracks and frost damage.

For more information on Lely products visit www.lely.com

A University of Nebraska-Lincoln Extension forage specialist says high quality hay could be in short supply this winter.

Bruce Anderson says frequent rains this summer in many parts of the Midwest caused delays in getting the hay put up.

“Hay that is being designed specifically for dairies or for a specific type of livestock–hay that needs to be very high quality–is certainly pretty limited out there this year with the weather that we’ve had, and that’s caused some problems,” Anderson says.

Supplies of medium- to low-quality hay—the type used for grinding in feedlots and feeding to beef cows—should be ample. But Anderson says some of it “may also have questionable characteristics—some heating or some mold development in that hay that we’ve got to be a little bit careful of, and judicious in how we use it with those livestock”

Anderson says hay testing is always important, but especially in a year when there might be quality problems.

Source: Brownfield

A study conducted by researchers from Vetmeduni Vienna has shown that the use of wood shavings and sawdust in dairy barns instead of straw bedding is especially good for claw health.

Dairy cows kept in barns often develop claw damage because of humid and unsuitable roaming areas. These disorders can affect the animals’ fertility or their milk production.

But a comparison with other barn types demonstrated that cows kept in compost bedded barns exhibited a lower frequency and lesser severity of claw disorders. The results were published in The Veterinary Journal.

Compost bedded barns use wood chips or sawdust as bedding instead of straw. The wood residue binds the excrement and daily aerating incorporates the manure and starts the composting process.

A team of researchers from Vetmeduni Vienna, led by Johann Burgstaller from the Clinical Unit of Ruminant Medicine, has for the first time compared the frequency of claw disorders and lameness in compost bedded barns and the more common freestall cubicle barns in Austria.

The researchers investigated the frequency and severity of claw lesions in five compost bedded barns and five freestall barns. “Lesions of low severity were categorised as grade 1, severe lesions as grade 3. The results for the individual lesions were weighted and subsequently added together to calculate an index value for the claw health per barn,” Mr Burgstaller explains. “A high value indicates poor claw health; a low value indicates good claw health. This value, however, is also influenced by factors such as frequency of care, feeding and genetics.”

The compost bedded barns exhibited about one half the number claw disorders, such as foot rot or white line disease, as the freestall barns. Both the frequency and severity were lower.

Lesions of grades 2 and 3 were seen only rarely. The compost bedding thus has a beneficial effect on claw health. Lameness, on the other hand, occurred at nearly the same frequency in both barn types. At about 18 per cent, however, the average of the freestall and compost bedded barns was below the international and previous Austrian level of 25 per cent.

Source: The Cattle Site

Temperature Humidity Index (THI) combines air temperature and relative humidity to calculate an index value to better represent the environmental conditions a cow or other animal feels. Dairy cows begin to experience heat stress when THI exceeds 68 (Figure 1). When cows experience heat stress, behavioral (decreased feed intake, increased standing time) and physiological (increased respiration, decreased rumination) changes occur in an attempt to mitigate the stress. Even low levels of heat stress can negatively impact milk production and reproductive performance in dairy cows. As heat stress levels increase, the impacts on cow performance and health become more extreme. The effect of THI on rumination and milk production were looked at on a dairy farm in Southeastern Pennsylvania; the results are presented below.

Case Farm and Data Collection

An average of 104 lactating Holstein cows were housed in a tunnel ventilated tie-stall barn. Over the past 12 months, cows averaged 92.4 pounds of milk per day with 3.8% fat and 3.0% protein based on DHIA data. Rumination data was collected using a Heatime HR Stanchion Barn activity system (SCR by Allflex). Temperature Humidity Index (THI) was calculated from temperature and humidity sensors located in the barn and integrated with the activity system software. Daily milk production was calculated from every other day bulk tank milk weights; bulk tank weights were divided by 104 cows and two days of milk in the bulk tank per pick-up. Rumination, THI, and milk production data were collected from July 7 through October 15, 2016.

Case Farm Results

During the course of the study, maximum daily THI ranged from 60 to 85, minimum daily THI ranged from 46 to 75, and average daily rumination ranged from 311 to 497 minutes per day (Figure 2). In general dairy cows will spend about 8 hours (480 minutes) per day ruminating. Cattle experienced at least some level of heat stress every day from July 7 through September 24. Through the end of September and even into October there were days when the THI passed the level that cattle experience heat stress. The impact of heat stress on rumination is clearly shown in Figure 2, especially for a period in mid-August when even the minimum THI value for the day remained above the heat stress threshold. Regression analysis of rumination versus THI showed that for every one point increase in maximum daily THI, dairy cows spent a little over 6 minutes less time ruminating each day (Figure 3). This one-point increase in maximum daily THI also resulted in a 0.6-pound decrease in milk production per cow per day (Figure 4).

Figure 2. Temperature Humidity Index (THI) and rumination of dairy cows in a Southeastern Pennsylvania herd from July 7 through October 15, 2016.

Figure 3. Regression of maximum daily Temperature Humidity Index (THI) and average rumination time of dairy cows in a Southeastern Pennsylvania herd from July 7 through October 15, 2016.

Figure 4. Regression of maximum daily Temperature Humidity Index (THI) and average daily milk production of cows in a Southeastern Pennsylvania herd from July 7 through October 15, 2016.

This article has focused on the use of rumination sensors and weather station data to demonstrate the effects of heat stress in dairy cattle. However, the more important thing to take away is that all the data presented in this paper were collected with technologies that are commercially available to dairy farmers today. These and other precision dairy technologies offer a wide range of detailed information that impact productivity, efficiency, and profitability on the dairy farm. In the current case farm example, the dairy farmer knows the impact of heat stress on his cows in his facilities, allowing him to make a more informed decision about potential heat abatement methods. Producers, nutritionists, veterinarians, and other consultants within the dairy industry could make better use of the data already being generated on farms by existing technologies and should be prepared to take advantage of new technologies as they become available.

Source: PennState Extension

Every dairy farmer wants to maximize milk production, but the pathway to achieving it is unique for each herd. Purina Animal Nutrition conducted an informal survey to discover the management areas dairy farmers are focusing on to reach their goals.

At World Dairy Expo, dairy farmers were asked to vote by placing a ping-pong ball in the management area that best represents their herd’s greatest opportunity to increase milk production. Votes were collected in person at the Purina Animal Nutrition booth and online.

More than 1,000 dairy farmers voted, and three management areas quickly rose to the top:

1.    Facilities and cow comfort

2.    Feeding and nutrition

3.    Calf and heifer raising

Tim Servais, a dairy farmer from Studdard, Wis., who milks 380-cows, cast his vote for feeding and nutrition. He explained, “We recently updated our facilities, and I’ve been pleased with the resulting increase in cow comfort and milk production. Now, I see room for improvement in feeding and nutrition. I’m working closely with my nutritionist to continue my herd’s progress.”

As dairy farmers placed their votes,Purina Animal Nutrition experts were on hand to offer insight on tools available to help define pathways to greater milk production.

Twenty percent of dairy farmers agreed with the vote that Servais cast. The other results show that 20.3 percent felt calf and heifer raising was their next opportunity; 29.1 percent voted for facilities and cow comfort; 13.5 percent herd health and reproduction; 13.5 percent for labor and management; while 3.3 percent felt another factor was their next step to higher milk production.

“Many dairy farmers want to optimize their herd’s performance,” said Kevin Dill, Ph.D., dairy technical services manager with Purina Animal Nutrition. “Purina is here to help dairy farmers focus their efforts on areas where they can make the greatest impact. Then, we can develop a specific action plan.”

Source: Wisconsin State Farmer

With harvest winding down and manure application underway, it’s a good time to remember manure safety, says Rich Gates, professor and Extension specialist at the University of Illinois.

“Any liquid/slurry stores, when agitated, will release toxic hydrogen sulfide and methane gasses that can be lethal. Last summer, during agitation of a large manure storage tank in Wisconsin, a young farmer was killed from manure gas, along with 16 cows.

“This past weekend in mid-October there were three more incidents, with at least 61 cattle reported to have been killed in four incidents in the tri-state area.”

It is important to remember the key safety rules when agitating and emptying manure stores. These rules include taking steps to promote ventilation, removing workers and if possible animals, from buildings or nearby downwind structures, starting the agitation slowly, and watching for any harmful effects. Never enter an enclosed manure store without appropriate precautions, and be mindful that you can be overcome with a single breath if concentrations are high.

Facts surrounding the most recent incidents are sketchy, but custom applicators reported high to dangerous levels of hydrogen sulphide on the ground near tankers and in the cab of tractors during filling, according to a news release from Kevin Erb, University of Wisconsin Extension.

“Levels of hydrogen sulphide over 10 parts per million (ppm) should be considered dangerous, with most personal alarms set at 10 to 20 ppm,” said University of Illinois Extension educator Jay Solomon.

“Levels of 1-10 ppm cause irritation, 10-50 ppm cause more serious problems with eyes and respiratory tract, and above 50 ppm can be lethal quickly.” He also noted that this latest set of mortalities occurred in naturally ventilated deep-pit beef operations.

“Don’t forget the importance of ensuring that new or inexperienced workers are also trained in safety,” Mr Gates concluded.

Source: The Dairy Site