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The herd is on test (DHIA, owner sampler). Test information is
used primarily for determination of rolling herd average and to keep
track of SCC. BTSCC runs around 350,000 with peaks up to 550,000.
Prior to expanding from 200 to 300 milking cows, the BTSCC remained
very close to 300,000. All cows are treated with a penicillin-based
dry cow formula at the time of dry off. Milking equipment has never
been evaluated. The owners have noted that it is hard to find and
keep dependable milkers.
All the cows are bred by artificial insemination. They have owned
a semen tank for many years and recently (about a year ago) began to
inseminate their own cows to cut down on costs associated with the
AI technician. They feel very fortunate to have been able to
purchase 20 straws of semen from a valuable bull at a great price
form a neighboring dairy that went out of business. |
The
milking herd is kept in a freestall area built to hold 250 cows, but
they have opened up a lot that is contiguous with the freestall by
building up a stream bank. The edge of the stream bank is fenced off
to keep cows from accessing the stream. The freestall barn has two
concrete water vats, one on each end of the freestall. Mattresses
were installed in the freestall building about 2 years ago. Lime is
sprinkled on the mattresses a few times a week but
no additional bedding is used. Prior to the installation of mattresses
sand was used for bedding. An increase in the number of hock
injuries has been noticed over the past year or two. The cows walk
a total of 2400 feet (part gravel and part roughened concrete) from the
freestall to the milking parlor and back.
A skid steer with a rubber
tire on front is used to scrape alleys once per day. The owner changes
buckets on the farm skid steer before driving into the feed bunk. Manure
from the freestall is mixed with the manure from the calf barn and spread on
the fields. A separate bucket is used exclusively for loading ration
components into the TMR wagon, after removing the half tire that
they have used for cleaning. The central feedbunk is filled with a
TMR (twice daily) from a wagon which is driven in on one side of the
barn and out the other. After the mixer wagon is emptied it is
parked next to the feed bunk where it will be loaded the next time a
ration is prepared.
The TMR is balanced for the higher
producing cows. The herd milk fat test is running around 3%.
Forages are tested once, at harvest. Milk production has gradually declined over
the past several years. Milk production per cow has gone from 80 pounds
to 60 pounds. About 6 months ago the ration was adjusted by decreasing
the amount of hay in the mix and adding 3 pounds of
corn meal per cow per day. The use of bST was instituted. It does
not appear that these changes have made much of a difference.
Cows that
are treated with antibiotics are identified with a red leg band and
moved to the treatment/fresh cow barn to be milked. The
treatment/fresh cow barn is a separate building. The milking parlor
in this building is the one that was used prior to the milking herd
expansion. A chalkboard is located in the treatment/fresh milking
parlor, which contains treated animal's ear tag numbers and the date
they can return to the freestall. When a fresh cow's milk clears or
the milk withholding time is satisfied for a treated cow's milk, she
is moved back to the freestall barn. A treated cow's red leg band is
removed prior to moving her back to the regular milking barn. A cow
sold at the end of 2000 was identified at the packing plant with a
violative antibiotic meat residue. 
Lameness is a problem. A footbath containing copper
sulfate located at the entrance of the milking parlor is changed
twice weekly. The cow's feet are trimmed on a yearly basis. Both
heal warts and laminitis have been noted. A cow (50 DIM) was
recently found dead after having been off feed for two days. A
necropsy performed by the herd veterinarian noted peritonitis
associated with a perforated abomasal ulcer as the probable cause of
death.