Care of transition cows brings herd health ‘excellence’

Close attention to detail around transition has resulted in improved herd fertility and health on a Cornish dairy.

Dry cow nutrition was previously overlooked at Tregevis Farm, admits Andrew Bray, who farms 240 pedigree-registered Holstein-Friesian cows near St Martin with his wife, Julie, and son, Martin.

Previously, cows were losing condition approaching calving, often resulting in retained foetal membranes (RFMs), milk fever rates stood at 10% and left displaced abomasums (LDA) were running at 3%.

Significant improvements have been made over the past two years, after the Brays enlisted the help of Premier Nutrition’s transition management system (TMS) along with their nutritionist, Steve Chapman of SC Nutrition.

The management system benchmarks herds against a national pool of more than 30,000 cows across the UK. Herds are scored once a month in three areas:

• Physical cow data body condition score, rumen fill, lameness, feet and udder hygiene
• Milk data somatic cell count, milk components, milk yield, mastitis infection and cure rates, acidosis/ketosis risk
• Herd health milk fever, RFMs, LDAs, cows culled in first 100 days

Since taking part in the programme, the Brays have massively improved their dry cow health, despite the fact the herd has undergone expansion at Tregevis.

No LDAs have been recorded in more than a year and milk fever cases have fallen from 10% to zero this winter.

See also: 8 essential jobs when drying off cows

This means the farm is now rated excellent on these counts, according to the TMS, as well as scoring excellent for dry cow lameness and RFMs, and no cows are being culled in the first 100 days of lactation.

“Having a trained person come on farm and condition score cows is really helpful. Unlike us they have the ability to offer a better assessment as they aren’t seeing the same cows every day,” explains Mr Bray.

Key tweaks to nutrition have resulted in cows holding body condition by maintaining high intakes before and after they calve-down, explains Mr Bray.

Dry cows now receive plenty of long fibre, a dry cow roll and a rehydration drink post-calving.

“The rehydration drink has made a huge impact, I would swear by it,” says Mr Bray.

One kilo of a scoop of powder is fed in 20 litres of warm water immediately after calving.

Containing dextrose and glucose, the drink rehydrates and energises the cow, carrying soluble phosphorous and calcium into the cow’s blood.

The volume of water stretches out the rumen wall, allowing the cow to then focus on eating, says Mr Chapman.

See also: Strict monitoring of freshly calved dairy cows helps improve transition health

Mr Bray believes it has helped clear up problems previously seen with LDAs and has had a marked effect on fresh cow appetite.

“Prior to using the TMS, and [receiving] help from people outside the farm, we concentrated on the milking herd, but perhaps neglected our dry cows and transition cows,” admits Mr Bray.

Dry cows are still housed in traditional yards and calve on straw.

However, much more focus is being put on silage quality and minerals to set cows up for lactation and address milk fever issues.

“We now look to feed a higher DM silage to dry cows. This is big baled and dry, which suits the cows well. We try to keep dry cows off grass, instead focusing on a long-fibre diet,” explains Mr Bray, who is now seeing transition cows maintain a body condition score of three.

In addition, a 26 crude protein dietary cation anion balance (DCAB) dry cow roll is now included at up to 3kg a head a day, with round bale silage at 35% DM, 11.5-12 metabolisable energy and 13% crude protein.

The dry cow roll is tailor-made in a nut form to improve palatability by Crediton Milling and supplies minerals such as selenium and calcium to help meet the nutritional needs of gestating cows, helping reduce milk fever by maintaining blood calcium levels, according to Mr Chapman. 

Fertility

Fertility has also improved on the back of transition management improvements, with calving interval falling by 10 days from 405 days to 395 days and conception rates lifting from 32% to 45%.

“Forage intake is important as we want to continue growing cows after calving at two years.

“Palatability helps dry matter intake and as a result we are seeing cows come bulling nicely and the condition of the animals is improving,” adds Mr Bray.

Saving 10 days on the calving interval is worth between £6,000 and £7,000 because of reduced unplanned culls and the ability to rear more calves a year, explains Mr Chapman.

In addition there are savings on the milking ration and straw across more than 200 cows.

“Savings are made on silage costs and 1-2kg of parlour cake a cow a day and this is at a time when she is giving little milk,” says Mr Chapman.

“If you add in the fertility costs, which includes straws at £15-£20, having more calves each year and culling [fewer cows], we are making an overall saving of nearly £7,000,” he adds.

Building changes: Cow comfort

A new cubicle shed mean cows transition into the herd on sand bedding after a major farm redesign in 2012, with cows now milked in two groups – low yielders and high yielders.

Wider alleys and bunk access is helping support DMIs, which is also maintaining BCS through better access to total mixed ration (TMR), reducing competition for feed and water.

Lameness has improved markedly over recent years, with Mr Bray foot-trimming individual problem cows alongside regular visits from a foot-trimmer.

Mr Bray adds: “I now  have to sort out only 20-30 cows each year, and that is with 240 cows.

“Before the farm grew we had a digital dermatitis problem and I was trimming around twice that number in a 140-cow herd.

“I do not like to see lameness cases get bad, I try and sort them early.”

Mr Bray also attributes healthy feet to increasing parlour size from the original 10:10 herringbone parlour to a new 28:28 design.

It takes one hour to milk each milking group, with two people milking in the parlour instead of one, a move that has more than halved cow standing times from three-and-half hours to one hour.

Furthermore, sand bedding has resulted in cows lying down for longer. Mr Bray also altered the once-a-day foot-bathing regime, settling on two 200 litre baths.

The first washes the feet with water and the second uses 1% formalin for five days followed by 6-7kg of copper sulphate for three days in a continuous rotation.

Milk ration savings

Alongside the dry cow ration improvements, the Brays have addressed milking cow ration costs, after a 9p/litre drop in milk price between November 2015 and November 2016, by firstly using less-blend and also opting for a cheaper blend product.

“Because we have lost that 9p we decided we had to make some savings,” explains Mr Bray, who is now feeding 12.24kg DM of grass silage, up from 10.6kg DM and pulled 0.8kg of blend out of the total mixed ration.

Removing blend left a temporary 3% drop in yield, but a 26% increase in milk from forage is allowing the Brays to use more home-grown fodder beet, maize and cereals.

This countered a 25% drop in milk price, saving £1,000/month.

The new ration formulation has also resulted in lower milk urea levels, which have fallen from 0.040mg/dl in November 2015 to about the 0.025mg/dl mark.

Watching protein levels and milk urea has also improved fertility rates, says Mr Chapman, who explains that milk urea levels are indicative of protein passing through the cow going unused.

“Taking blend out of the ration is part of my philosophy of high intakes and milk from forage,” explains Mr Chapman, adding: “I believe in getting more from the home-grown grass and maize here while minimising any potential effects on cow yield, challenging farms to increase forage intakes whilst keeping a watchful eye on dry matter intake”.