OAD arrives early in Southland
Some dairy farmers in Southland are already moving to once a day (OAD) milking because they don’t have sufficient good pasture on which to graze their stock.
Matt and Cushla Smith are equity owner/operators on a 195ha 450-cow farm at Mangawhai, one hour north of Auckland.
The couple took over managing the farm in the 2009-10 season and had to find 500 cows when their sharemilker moved to another contract. There were no herds available that size and they had to cobble together a milking herd from five different herds, “some of which were unrecorded.”
This resulted in a 20 week calving and an empty rate of 10% from 15 weeks of mating. “The large calving spread reduced our days in milk which was cutting into our bottom line,” says Matt.
Last season 90% of the herd was submitted to mating by the third week with 98% of the herd calving within the first nine weeks this season.
The Smiths attributed this turnaround to factors including paying extra attention to young stock and making sure every animal goes into mating in the best condition possible.
Cow condition pre calving and mating is a priority on the farm, achieved by consistent quality feed and use of the OAD mob.
They draft the herd into several mobs post drying-off, largely to make sure competition between the animals is minimised. “It’s easier to manage smaller mobs.”
This winter the herd was grouped into late
calvers, mid calvers, early calvers, three-year-old cows and two-year-old cows.
This isn’t the only work done. The Smiths also CIDR non-cyclers and do liver biopsies and blood tests pre-mating to check the mineral status of the herd.
All calved cows also get a pour-on drench and mineral oral drench and have their tails
painted and trimmed. “We like to know we have given the cows the best possible start to the season,” says Matt.
The entire herd is ‘metrichecked’ three weeks prior to mating with infected cows being treated and Matt says the cows that need treatment aren’t necessarily those that had issues during calving. “Last season about half of the cows that required metricuring had natural calvings without any troubles whatsoever.”
One group of animals that get extra care is the two- and three-year-old cows. The Smiths break first and second calvers into a separate herd and milk them once a day all year. Cushla says it has paid off with the young animals in-calf rate and overall production.
“For the young animals firstly it comes down to condition to ensure a good mating and secondly their days in milk. Too many young animals are lost out of the system long before they reach their full production potential as 4-8 year-olds.
“Using OAD for the young animals has enabled us to minimise culling of these animals through better in-calf rates of the 2-year-olds. Also last season due to their condition we didn’t dry off our heifers until May 16.
“We ensure they’re getting the energy requirements to maintain and put on weight,” says Matt.
This season the R3s went into calving with a condition score of at least 5.0 despite being milked into May and most of them were amongst the first calvers this season, which was a direct result of the good condition they were in during mating last year.
The Smiths did everything possible to shrink the mating period, reducing it to 10 weeks, which Matt says has come from focusing on cow condition and animal health all year-round. “The results from all the hard work and planning in the current season will come through in next season’s calving pattern.”
Pre-mating heats are of extreme interest and any signs of cycling cows are recorded and entered into LIC Minda for an indication of which are non-cyclers prior to mating. Then they can be dealt with in a timely manner. “Everybody has a yellow notebook and mobile phone which allows them to record critical events, such as cows on heat, at any time.”
DairyNZ inCalf data presented at their Repo Rock seminar predicted an increase in potential profit of $45,000 for the 2011-12 season due to improved in-calf rates. The Smiths already have improved production from 695kgMS/ha in 2009-10 to 902kgMS/ha last season despite milking 60 fewer cows and having just under a third of the herd on OAD.
“In 2011-2012 we had almost 1/3 of our herd on OAD; this season we will have up to 40% of the herd on OAD,” says Cushla.
“Extending days in milk at both ends of the season together with improving the quality and quantity of feed the cows get has enabled us to increase the farms production year-on-year.”
