We are now entering the final few months of lactation for spring calving cows and the cows are beginning to slow down in milk production as the days become shorter.
The south of the country has experienced an unprecedented amount of rain over the last week, which has caused severe flooding, but for the most part, the rest of the country has been dry and ground has been holding up.
A lot of farmers down the south of the country have been forced to house their cattle over the last couple of days, but in general, cows are still making the most out of grazed grass.
There has been a lot of silage added to cows’ diets over the last couple of weeks as the growth rates have not been favourable, but cows seem to be holding their milk production off primarily grass, with generally 1-2kg of silage/cow and around 4kg of meal/cow.
Spring calving
The cows still need to be adequately fed using the cheapest available feed, which is grazed grass.
Every day at grass, is worth well over €2/cow/day additional profit at this time of the year, but there must be a balance implemented.
There needs to be a balance as the most important task any dairy farmer will undertake over the next month to six weeks is to ensure that the farm is closed off properly so that an adequate supply of grass is available early next year.
At this time of year, a cow’s production should be reducing by around 2.5% each week.
On farms where average farm cover (AFC) is on target but grazing conditions are poor and milk yield is falling by more than 2.5%/week, farmers should only be feeding around 1-2kg of concentrates while supplementing silage.
Feeding extra meal at this time of the year is wasteful, as the reality is that you are not going to get the same response off meal at this time of year than you would in the spring time.
BCS
Body condition score (BCS) your spring calving cows now so a feed plan can be put in place to feed the cows that are slightly under condition a bit more silage and cut the costs of over feeding cows that are already in good condition.
Keeping condition or building condition on cows is often another reason why extra concentrates will be fed to cows, but this will actually drive on production in cows and likely not help with building condition.
Instead, these cows should be considered for once-a-day milking and offered a high quality forage to help them with condition rather than production.
This late on in the lactation can be difficult in rectifying poor condition cows, so cows that are identified as too thin should be dried off earlier, as they will benefit from a longer dry off period.
Grass has been slow this year and silage has been in and out of the diet all summer, so, many herds may have cows that are slightly under condition and this should be a priority for the next couple of weeks.
Dry off
At this time of the year, farmers should consider organising their last milk recording of the year and get a plan in place for drying off.
Cows that have had a bad history of mastitis or have had a consistently high somatic cell count (SCC) over the last year should be given an antibiotic at drying off.
Cows that have had no history of mastitis and have produced high quality milk with a low SCC throughout the year shouldn’t require an antibiotic and should be just given a sealant at drying-off.
A successful selective dry cow therapy (SDCT) is completely dictated by the success or failure of selecting cows that are suitable for the drying-off procedure.
This success starts from being able to analyse your milk recording data and have history of your cows from the lactation gone.
